Throne Room
by Saismaat
Summary: Kyra is dead, long live Jack . . . Maybe.
1. Being Dead

She was dead.

She was dead and the 'verse was mourning.

It just didn't know it yet.

He had her body put in stasis, in a sepulture, covered with glass. She looked like she was sleeping.

Once, he had not been a man to dwell on the past. Or on revenge. Besides, he had killed the man who had killed her before she had breathed her last breath. There was no revenge left to take.

Except on every living thing.

Except on life itself.

Because of her, he could.

Because her death gave him the greatest fighting force ever known, fanatically dedicated to death already.

* * *

But even a genocidal rage can fade.

She was three days dead.

He had killed so many people in those three days. Killed, converted, tortured. Drank their pain like mother's milk.

It had not brought him peace. It had been deeply satisfying.

It made the army adore him. He could smell it on them. Hear it in their voices.

Maybe that was why it was not so satisfying any more.

Maybe it was time to leave the Helion system. Find something else to torture.

That'd just make the army adore him more.

_Fuck that._

But he should leave Helion Prime.

Should he bury Jack – Kyra? Should he build her a shrine?

_How would Kyra want to be buried?_

With the old man dead, he had no idea how to find out.

He stopped thinking about it.

* * *

Six days later. Another boring meeting. His mind was wandering. It wandered back to the holy man, dead.

The holy man was married. Had a wife and daughter.

_Daughter_ . . .

He pushed back from the table. Boring meeting was over. Gestured with his head, and ten men fell into step around him.

_Nice_.

They made their way to the old town. There were still people there; people not judged worth converting or killing yet. Children, mostly.

He found the house he had left them, the wife and daughter. Abu's necklace was still on the door. He hesitated at the threshold. He should do this gently. They had seen their planet brutalized, their streets run red with blood, their family torn to shreds.

He did not feel gentle.

He did manage not to kick the door in. Walked in softly, alone. He called softly, "Ziza?" That sounded kind of like gentle.

A rustling. A hesitant head poked out from behind a curtain. A flash of joy. "Riddick!"

His arms were suddenly full of five year old girl. He swung her up in the air and felt her joy wash over him. He hugged her tight, surprised at the prickle in his own eyes. "Your mother here, kid?" He managed to keep his voice steady.

She nodded. "Mama!"

After a pause, Lajjun emerged from behind the same curtain. Hesitant. Afraid. He should say something comforting. Let her know she was safe.

_Yeah, right. Safe._ The woman who had not kept his Jack safe. He shifted his grip on Ziza, moving her securely to his hip. He favored the cringing woman with a sardonic smile. "Coming?"

Without a look back, he left the tattered building, pocketing the holy man's necklace as he left.

"Did you find Jack?" Ziza asked as he loped into the Necropolis, his men and Lajjun following.

He thought about not answering. Finally, heavily, he told her.

"Yes."

"Where is she?"

"Dead."

Ziza was quiet for a long time. He started thinking about where to keep her. Where would be safe. _Little girls should be safe, damn it. _

_Except the ones I'm killing._

This little girl broke into his increasingly dark thoughts. "Can I see her?"

He shrugged. _Kid's got guts_. "Sure." He could hear Lajjun protesting. Ignored her.

He took her to Kyra's body laying still, still serene. He could look at her now without executing the next person he saw. Executing. That was administrator talk. _Damn_. He was becoming an administrator.

Ziza stared at the body, solemnly. He put her down, suddenly feeling burdened by her weight. Lajjun came around fast to try to scoop her up. He gave her a measured look and she backed off, her fear a palpable presence in the crypt. Amazing that Ziza did not feel it.

Or maybe she did. "Riddick?" Ziza said, hesitantly subdued.

"What?"

"That's Kyra."

"I know."

"Where's Auntie Jack?"


	2. Prisons

His body understood the words before his mind did. He was already crouching down in front of the child before his mind had caught up. Probably a good thing or he would have backhanded her away from the casket.

"What do you mean?"

"It's Kyra, not Jack," Ziza said, wide eyed. He looked up at Lajjun, who nodded, once, spasmodically.

He swung Ziza back up onto his hip, eyes locked on Lajjun, threat implicit. "Tell me."

Lajjun swallowed, terrified. She managed, at last "I don't know much."

He said nothing.

She rushed through. "Jack ran away, once. Kyra brought her back. I don't know what happened while she was gone. Kyra would stay with us sometimes. She gave Jack money, gifts, made sure she learned how to fight. I don't know why. I don't know who she was. I worried she was groom---" She broke off. Looked away. Took a deep breath and continued.

"A few years ago, she asked Jack to go with her. Jack didn't want to go, but -- We didn't hear anything until we received word she was in Crematoria."

"Anything else?" he rumbled, softly.

Lajjun shook her head, violently.

"Ziza?" he asked, softly.

"Kyra was smart," the girl said, proudly. "She looked like Jack. She had a ship called Nimue. She killed people. And she liked sweet things."

After that, it wasn't too hard. The ship's name was a lucky break. Made it easy to figure out that Kyra had left Helion Prime with Jack, and a year later, was cast into Crematoria without her. Kyra had been good at hiding her tracks, but he had the best trackers in the galaxy.

It was Jack's damn fault he was here. If she had stayed put, none of this would have happened. He would have swept her up and she'd be safe, someplace else.

He needed her to be safe.

Since he needed to be here when they brought her in, he started becoming the Lord Marshal in earnest. He still had not taken the mark, but in every other way, he served their mission as if it was his own. Worlds fell at his feet. Intoxicating.

He set Ziza and Lajjun up in his own rooms, technically, though he hardly ever saw Lajjun. Ziza he saw every day. He was probably spoiling her. Even got her some pets to play with. Other children salvaged from the wreckage of wrecked worlds. Told Lajjun to take care of them. Assumed she was.

The generals thought he was torturing them, letting children run around the Necropolis. Reason enough to do it.

Too many months after they left Helion Prime, word came back that Jack had been found and would be retrieved per his standing orders. Minimum force. Retrieve her unharmed. Otherwise, strategy was left in the able hands of able officers, authorized to commit the entire force of the Necromonger military to the mission, if they felt it necessary. Not that the ship he sent wasn't perfectly capable boiling the skies and burning the seas of the particular planet, if need be.

Not convenient to go himself, unfortunately, what with a universe to conquer. Plus, he didn't want to seem too eager. Might give people ideas.

* * *

_As prisons go_, Jack thought, _this really wasn't so bad. Nothing like what Riddick and Kyra talked about. _

Not that it was a prison. Arden was a school. A very good school, dedicated to the daughters of the rich and powerful. Good teachers, good classes, beautiful buildings, and plenty of daylight. And Kyra had picked it because it had an excellent reputation for repelling kidnapping attempts.

It's just that she couldn't leave. Part of the anti-kidnapping thing.

Theoretically, she could. She was an adult; they would not hold her against her will. But there was no transportation provided students except by special arrangement. Arrangements, she had learned, Kyra had specifically not made.

The school was high in the mountains, and while, again in theory, one could climb out of the bowl valley where it was set, that would have meant sheer rock cliffs and glaciers. Practically speaking, one had to fly. And while she knew how to pilot a little, and knew how break into things a lot, the ships here were very secure.

She hadn't tried too hard, yet. But it had been more than a year since she'd heard from Kyra, and she was getting nervous. She was here, under a (mostly) false name, with no clue where the money was coming from for tuition, or what she would do when it ran out. Or what she would do if they figured out she was not minor warrior nobility from a distant world, but just some kid from the streets, thrust into this institution less for its educational reputation as for its security features. Because, for some reason she could barely guess at, she attracted the attention of violent people. Some of which wanted her to be safe.

But it was beautiful, and today was sunny, and she was getting a top notch education. If, that was, she was going to be a military officer or government administrator some day, she thought with only a little bitterness. That's what most of the girls were here to learn. But not bloody likely, with her background. A background check was bound to lead to too much trouble, even after Kyra had her retinal patterns changed to avoid detection off of the damn tapes.

Unconsciously, she shivered. Checked to make sure the carbon knife was Riddick gave her was still strapped securely to her thigh. She'd slit her own throat before going back to that nightmare. Had the move practiced smooth.

Career. Right. She could become a mercenary, but she recognized that was mostly the oppositional defiant disorder talking, and she was mostly over that.

Career was not a problem she had to face today, mercifully. Today, she could sit in a tree and study and enjoy one of the last warm days before winter finalized its grip on the high valley. She'd even broken away from her friends to do it. She loved some of the girls here, but they could be very distracting.

She was well on her way to finishing this week's lesson in planetary relations (amusingly, junior members of several of that week's featured planets' leading families were in her class, bringing a gossipy spice to the chapters) when a military shuttle landed right in front of her own dormitory.

A trickle of fear iced down her spine. All shuttles were supposed to land on the school's tiny space port, not just go where they wanted. Seven heavily armed men disembarked. Three went into the dormitory; two strode towards the administrative building, and two set up guard outside the ship. Kidnapping?

No, that didn't make sense. They wouldn't be visiting the administration building if that was their plan.

After a seeming eternity, she could see them in her room. She could see them through the light curtains on her window. They were looking for her.

_What would Kyra do? What would Riddick do? _

Riddick would stay put. Kyra would probably stick herself in the middle of it all. _Like trying to guess which psycho-killer you are_, she thought. Despite it all, she snorted.

She was fairly well hidden. It would be night soon; she could sneak out of the tree and . . . freeze to death, given the time of year. Warm days, cold nights. Not the bestest plan ever.

They were still in her room. They seemed to be . . . moving things around? Searching for something? That didn't make much sense. She had nothing interesting. Nothing that wasn't on her body right now.

_Damn_.

Time stretched on towards infinity. And the men in her room came down with a gravity sled full of boxes. Her stuff. Not making sense.

Her fear was beginning to fade, replaced by a certain peevishness. _Had Kyra sent these men? Were they her idea of a moving company?_

No. That also didn't make sense. They were military. Kyra had no use for the military. And they clearly were not mercenaries for hire. Too organized. Too disciplined.

If they were going to arrest her, it was unlikely they'd start by packing up her stuff.

_So what the fuck were they doing?_

She needed information.

She thought clearer when she was peevish rather than terrified. There was a way out. The tree touched another, which touched another, which touched a maintenance shed that was connected via an underground tunnel to the administration building. Lots of locked doors, but she was getting good at picking locks. Another gift Kyra had given her. If she could get to the building, she might be able to figure out what was going on.

Fortunately, it was fairly early in autumn, and the leaves had not dropped. It was slow and painful, but she managed, at long last, to drop quietly down onto the roof of the shed. She stayed flat on her stomach until she was sure she had not been spotted. At last, she slid through the roof access and wormed her way through the maze of access tunnels built to avoid snow.

_If I stay here, they might never find me._

She shook her head. Kept moving. They'd be talking to the Dean, and she knew of a service closet where she could lurk and listen. She got there fast, unnoticed.

"Commander Toal, we just haven't found her yet." the Dean was saying. "I'm sorry. We let our students go anywhere in the valley."

"Hm." A man's voice sighed. "Unfortunate."

"You understand," the Dean continued, wearily, afraid, "we will not allow you to take her by force. If she chooses to go with you, we will not stop her. But we protect our students."

"Good for you," Commander Toal replied, easily. The sound of men entering the room. "All packed?" he asked, relaxed and self satisfied.

"Yes sir."

"So all we need is our young 'Audrey.'"

_Shit_. They really were looking for her. Who ever they were.

"We will keep looking," the Dean said.

"I think it's time to move this along. Produce her, or I will begin the destruction of this institution. I have a warship in orbit. We will start with the east dorm."

"You wouldn't. You might kill her by accident."

"No, I don't think so. Our scans indicate there is no one in that building past puberty. You understand, I have my orders. I am sorry."

The Dean gasped. The Dean believed. The Dean was no lightweight. The Dean thought they would kill children.

_Am I the self sacrificing type?_ Jack wondered, distantly. Never really had the chance to find out before.

Guess so, she answered herself. Pushed open the closet and entered the room. "You lookin' for me?"

Easy to pick out Commander Toal, he looked like he was used to being in command. "Jack al-Walid, I presume?"

_Oh boy, this just gets better and better. _No one had called her that since she left New Mecca, since Kyra gave her this new identity. Its penetration was unlikely to be a good thing. She appraised the man, who, oddly enough, seemed to be waiting for her, politely.

"I've been called that," she shrugged, with studied nonchalance.

The Commander smiled at her. "We would speak with you alone."

"I cannot allow that," the Dean said, heatedly. "We do not leave our students unchaperoned."

The Commander shrugged, and shot her. Before thought caught up, Jack was bolting from the room, but was yanked out of flight by one of the mountains masquerading as soldiers. He wrapped an arm around her chest and clamped a hand over her mouth.

"She will wake," the Commander said, easily. "She is only stunned. We wish you no harm. We must, however, be sure you are the one we have been sent to retrieve." He gestured, and the least heavily armed of the men approached.

The man's eyes were strangely compassionate. "This won't hurt," he said, quietly. He reached for her face with long fingers.

_Fuck, a telepath._ Another part of her nightmares; her memories sifted and recorded by a telepath who seemed to enjoy twisting her darkest nightmares. No help for it now, his hands were on her temples.

He was right, it didn't hurt. At first. He wasn't rooting around her head. All he did was suggest an image. Riddick. Waited for her to react.

React she did. Memories of screaming, screaming, never to stop screaming flooded back. With strength she didn't know she had, she head butted him and twisted out of the other man's grip. Her knife was in her hand. She flung herself toward the window.

_Too late. _The commander was blocking her path, weapon drawn. No way to get to the door; two of the soldiers where there. She changed direction. Got her feet under her. Made a decision. The knife headed for her own throat.

"Stop her!" the telepath screamed from the ground. She could still feel his ghostly fingers tangled in her brain.

Faster than people should be able to move, one soldier yanked her backwards by the neck, another knocked the weapon from her hands. She was trapped by nightmares and by strangers' hands. She clamped her teeth against the sobs that were threatening to paralyze her.

The telepath struggled to his feet, took her face in his hands, gently. "I promise. It won't be like that. We don't want to hurt you. We've been ordered not to hurt you."

The compassion in his eyes broke her heart. He knew. He knew everything. Everything vile thing ever done to her.

The Commander was less impressed. "Miss. You will come with us. If you do anything like that again, we will start killing your friends."

She stared at him, suddenly hard eyed, panic transformed to anger. "You do that, you'll have to kill me. I'll make you kill me. Or you'll have to beat me into submission and if I'm right about who sent you, you will be in big trouble."

Mostly an empty threat; she couldn't even lift her arms. But the telepath interceded again. "Jack," he said, softly. "Walk out of here with us. We'll take you to a better world."

Clearly full of shit, but what choice did she have? She couldn't let children die, what ever in her panic she'd almost done. And their hands were hard enough on her to bruise. They weren't going to let her go.

* * *

They brought her back to the Necroverse in cryo sleep and took her to the med deck.

There was nothing really wrong with her, they said. It was just a good place to keep her until he had a chance to confirm it was her. To decide whether she would wake up if she wasn't.

There was too much to do to rush straight down. She'd been there about four hours before he could break away.

It was her.

She did look like Kyra. Two girls, sleeping in glass caskets. Waiting to wake up.

Well, one of them waiting.

He sent everyone else out of the room. No prying eyes for this. He lifted her gently out of the cryochamber and laid her on an exam table, the umbilical cord of sleeping drugs snaking back to its source.

He brushed her hair from her face and neck, letting his fingers play across her cheek, down . . .

_Huh?_ Her hair had concealed something –

A bruise. A thumb shaped bruise on the left side of her neck, angling upwards. Matching bruises on the right. Someone had grabbed her by the neck from behind, hard. His men?

Fury began to rise. He realized abruptly that she was not dressed like a student, but in the brief, loose gown that Necromongers sometimes made those waiting for conversion wear, in case they had weapons hidden in their own clothes. A security measure. They had made her change clothes, afraid she was armed and would hurt someone. He almost stripped her naked to see if there were more marks on her before he got control of himself. He settled for pushing up her sleeves. More fresh bruises.

Fury struggled with a new revelation. She'd fought. She had not wanted to come. The thought was staggering. Never once occurred to him she wouldn't want to be with him.

_Fuck what she wants. _

He managed, barely, to regain control. He was not being reasonable. Would the Necromongers tell her who sent them? Not sure they thought that way. Even if they had said he sent them, she probably would not have believed them. Would have thought it was a trick. Would have thought they were mercs.

So they came for her, she said no, and they took her anyway. By force. Because he told them to bring her back. _Really didn't think this one through, did I? _

Had she gone to sleep in pain, afraid?

Why hadn't they told him?

_How do you know they didn't? It's not like you read their report, asshole, _he thought, grimly. _You just came down here as soon as it was convenient. _

There was an easy way to figure all this out. Wake her up; see if she recoiled in horror or threw herself into his arms.

No, it might be best to wait until he had time to do it right; time to talk to her about what had happened since he'd left her somewhere she should have been safe. Since he'd left her to keep her safe.

So much he had to say to her. About how much he missed her. About her leaving New Mecca with the crazy woman. Now, about fighting his men. If only there wasn't so fucking much to do today. If only there wasn't so fucking much to do every day.

It might be best to let her sleep.

No. He was Riddick, the Lord Marshal of the Necromongers, and he wanted this girl awake. He was here because of her; least she could do is go through it with him. He pulled the needle out of her arm and bandaged it, gently.

She woke gradually, like she was supposed to. He was not used to having to wait for things any more. The most powerful man in the galaxy, delayed by a frail girl's metabolism.

Frail. She wasn't really frail. Actually well muscled. Ballsy enough to stand up to a phalanx of Necromongers. Just frail compared to Kyra . . .

Distracted by thoughts of Kyra, he almost missed her eyelids fluttering. But he heard her first natural breath, saw her eyes open, fix on him. Her smile was pure joy.

"Riddick?" she whispered. It had been more than a year since anyone but Ziza had called him that; he almost didn't recognize his name from the lips of an adult.

He came closer. "Hey, kid," he said, softly.

"I've missed you so much," she whispered, completely unguarded. Were those tears in her eyes? "I never thought I'd see you again." Still in the narcotic grip of the drugs, she reached out, clumsily.

Kyra would not have been clumsy, he thought with a chill of bitterness. Still, he gathered her into a rough embrace, nuzzling her face with his own. She pressed against him hard, then relaxed into his arms in a way that made his heart ache.

He broke it off, pulled back. "You're safe now," he said, firmly.

She looked up at him, confused. "Safe from what? What's going on?"

Her confusion immediately annoyed him. One thing to be said for the Necros, they were never confused. Clarity, that was their thing.

_Get over yourself, _he scolded. _You're comparing your Jack unfavorably to the Necros? You're irritated because she doesn't know what's going on? _

_Do you even know what's going on? _

She was watching him, more carefully now. She might be remembering things. "Look," he said. "You're safe. I'll explain everything. But I've got things I gotta do. We'll get you checked out, set up. We'll have dinner, get you up to speed before bed." He leaned back, opened a door behind him.

A woman in a white smock came in, smiling. She bowed her head to Riddick, who gave her a nod.

"Melissa. Take care of her. Fix anything broken. Then have someone find her suitable clothes," he ordered.

"Yes my lord," the woman said.

Jack's eyes were wide, confused. Maybe he should have waited after all. Oh well. He kissed her on the cheek, like he would kiss Ziza. Maybe a little more lingering. Was pleased to see her blush. Left her to the medics.

* * *

The exam was thorough. There was no part of Jack that wasn't poked, prodded, or sampled. Everyone was gentle, deferential, and utterly unilluminating.

They could hear her, she knew. Arm up, arm down, does this hurt, when did you break this? You are torn, do you know why?

They also didn't ask permission, exactly. They did what they wanted to her, just in a deferential fashion that increased her confusion. They only smiled politely at her questions.

Until Dame Vaako. She slid in to the exam room, sinuously. "Aren't you a pretty one?" she breathed at Jack.

Jack stared at her, not comprehending this woman, whose entire body seemed to be dedicated to catching and holding the eye. "Hello?" She felt absurd, sitting on an exam table in a thin hospital gown, in the presence of this walking, breathing, icon.

"Please allow me to introduce myself. I am Dame Vaako." She arched her neck in a gesture that might have been inspired by a reverent bow.

"I'm – Jack."

"I know. I have been asked to help outfit you according to your new station." She paused, expectantly.

"Thanks?"

"Which raises the question . . . what is your station?"

"I don't know what you mean."

"Hmm."

The two women eyed each other. Jack, cautiously. Dame Vaako, with increasingly obvious pleasure.

"Well," Dame Vaako continued, "Jack. Why don't we find what looks good on you. And meanwhile you can tell me about your relation to the Lord Marshal. That will help us decide what is . . . most suitable."

Dame Vaako extended a perfectly manicured hand. Jack took it, uncertainly. Dame Vaako led her, undulating perfectly, from the room.

* * *

The Necropolis was stunning. Jack could barely believe she was on a space ship. The extravagant amount of interior space, the sheer weight of the ornaments all seemed nearly obscene. Dame Vaako set a stately, leisurely pace through this decadence, allowing a generous amount of time for many of those they passed to bow and smile. She seemed gracious and friendly, but Jack was not loving being nearly naked in front of these beautiful, heavily armed, people. Most politely averted their eyes from her body. Their own heavily armed guards flanking them might have had something to do with that.

Jack couldn't help but notice that no one else had guards.

The guards stayed outside the fitting rooms. The older woman showed her a dizzying array of clothing, most of which was annoying. Tight. Revealing. Ornamental. These people didn't seem to solidly grasp that women could wear pants.

In the end, they settled. They would make her some clothing more like what she was used to wearing, and she accepted some of the fancy, weirdly spine-enhancing costumes. But she walked out in a simple black dress and the sturdiest shoes Dame Vaako would authorize – which were not too sturdy.

All the while, Dame Vaako asked her questions, sweetly. They seemed to be about her, but they all got back to Riddick. Out of habit, if nothing else, Jack became evasive. And then she felt bad, because the woman switched to less troubling questions.

As they left the fitting room, armed guards fell back into step around them. Dame Vaako entwined her arm with Jack's and took it on herself to point out interesting architectural features. Finally, Jack could bear it no more.

"Has Riddick always been the Lord Marshal?"

"Oh, no child! Only about a year ago."

"What happened?"

"He ascended in a traditional fashion. Sent his predecessor, the beloved Lord Zhylaw, past the threshold to the Underverse."

Jack tried to untangle the words. Gave up. "You mean he killed him?"

Dame Vaako laughed, a tinkling sound. "Yes. But in the Necromonger faith, death is a reward. It is the gateway to a better world."

"So why don't you all commit suicide?"

"Many do. And many more are sent there, as a mercy. But those of us here have a mission. To bring _all_ life across the threshold. To live eternally in a better world."

_O-kay, _thought Jack. _These people are crazy. You die, you die. _

_Crazy, and they want to kill everyone. Bring the blessings of death. _

No wonder Riddick's in charge.

She shivered. It was like there were two Riddicks; always had been. The sociopathic killer who hated god and was enchanted by death. The one she tried to ignore. And the other one; the one who came back for her; who kept stepping between her and monsters. The one she had loved, and who seemed, sometimes, to love her.

_Which one sent the warship after me? _

She became abruptly aware that Dame Vaako was watching her, politely, curiously. The woman might be crazy, but she was being kind to her, and deserved some sort of response. "So – Riddick's a Necromonger?"

"No. He has accepted our mission, but not the faith. Which is curious."

"He's always been a little nihilistic."

Dame Vaako smiled. "But he's also protective."

"I don't follow."

The older woman sighed, seemingly sad. "Child, it's curious because he seemed to care about the woman who helped him kill the Lord Marshal. She had accepted our faith, thus, she will live eternally in the Underverse. The killer of a Lord Marshal, without allies. They will not be kind to her. If he was one of us, he would be able to protect her in the next world. His failure to do so is a subject of much quiet speculation among the faithful."

Jack found herself snorting. Then she realized that might be seen as sacrilegious. Slightly guiltily, she offered, "I've never understood Riddick either."

"But you've known him for a long time." It was a statement.

Jack shrugged. "Not really. We traveled together for a while, a long time ago. I'm a little surprised he remembers me."

"My dear girl, he sent a warship after you. Told his men to retrieve you by any means necessary."

_Guess that could be an affectionate gesture, in some worlds, _Jack thought. _Or an incredibly disturbing one, in most. _ "Yeah."

Dame Vaako watched her carefully. "Let me show you something," she said, finally. "We think, maybe, you were brought here to replace someone. The girl he failed to save."

They walked in silence to a different portion of the ship – city – what ever it was. Into a room that looked like a chapel. Instead of an altar, there was an ornate stasis tube. Dame Vaako motioned Jack forward.

_Kyra. _

_Kyra, dead. _

_Kyra, dead, on Riddick's ship. _

Jack slid noiselessly to the floor in shock.


	3. replacements

ON THE STEPS

"What happened?" Jack whispered. Dame Vaako sighed, looking older for a moment.

"I'll show you. Come with me." She helped her up, led her out of the little room, through the torturous maze of a city.

They were intercepted not far from the chapel. "Jack!" a child's voice, followed by a running child.

Jack swept the child up in her arms, joy crowding out grief. "Ziza! What are you doing here?"

"Uncle Riddick brought me and mama here!"

_Uncle Riddick? _"Lajjun?"

"It's good to see you, Jack." Lajjun, all in black, caught up. She looked haunted, sad, thin.

"Is Abu here?"

Lajjun looked even sadder. "He died in the invasion of Helion Prime."

All the blackness returned. "Oh my god. I'm so sorry."

Dame Vaako smoothly interceded. "My dear Lady Lajjun. You seem overwrought. Sergeants!" Two Necromongers came over, stood at attention. "Please escort the good lady to her chambers."

The soldiers gestured courteously. Lajjun glanced spasmodically at Jack. "I'll talk to you soon, dear." She and Ziza left quickly with the soldiers. Jack starred after them.

"What's going on?" she whispered to Dame Vaako, who smiled at her, with seeming compassion.

"I think it will make more sense if I show you."

_Not sure I can handle anything else you want to show me, _Jack thought. But not knowing what else to do, she let herself be led away. They had left the hallway before Ziza came running back, one of the sergeants following, a tired look on his face.

They soon came to a vast empty, room, with a cathedral ceiling, monumental statutes, and an enormous throne. The soldiers escorting them took up stations by the doors.

"This is where it happened," Dame Vaako said, with apparent sadness. "Where she died. The one you are replacing."

Dame Vaako twirled around the room, her lips playing with a serene smile. She stopped in front of the throne. "They were fighting along here, the old Lord Marshal and your Riddick." She mimed blows thrown and received across the middle of the throne room, her slight body parodying mammoth forces.

"The old Lord Marshal had the new one down on his knees. He was about to deliver the death blow. And then she – the one you are replacing, my dear – she stabbed him in the back."

She mimed the heroic thrust of a spear, twirled, fell like a man collapsing in an agony of betrayal.

She sat back up brightly. "He backhanded her across the room." With little steps she danced backwards, coming to rest against a pillar layered in spikes. Jack stared, frozen. After a polite pause, Dame Vaako continued.

"Poetic justice; she was penetrated, just like him, in the back." Vaako thrust herself back against a spike, lasciviously. Her eyes wide, seemingly guileless, locked on Jack's horrified face.

"She dragged herself off the spike, stumbled, and fell here." Dame Vaako did not even try to mime the death walk, but instead took Jack's arm and led her quietly up the steps leading up to the throne. She gazed at the throne longingly for a moment before collapsing, gracefully, onto the steps, arms languidly above her head, still and sublime. An uncomfortably long pause.

Then she pivoted to sit upright, all fluid and dignity, sitting easily on the steps. She met Jack's eyes as Jack, all too solid flesh and growing sense of horror slid gracelessly down to the same steps beside her.

"Her Noble Sacrifice," and you could hear the ironic capitals if you listened, "revived our young Lord Riddick, and he stabbed the old Lord Marshal in the head, killing him. Alas, the young lady was nearly dead. She died here, in his arms, right here. And he fell back into the throne." Dame Vaako stroked it reverently, sensuously.

She stood up. "The rest his now our history." She smiled at Jack, with authentic seeming sorrow.

Tears were spilling down Jack's cheeks. Kyra. Her best friend, maybe even her sister. Dead. Dead in Riddick's arms. Dead because of Riddick.

If she'd been thinking more clearly, it might have occurred to her that Dame Vaako had not told her anything new; just done it in a way that was most likely to hurt. But she wasn't thinking clearly.

Dame Vaako continued, softly. "We think he thought she was you. As soon as he learned she was not, he sent our men all over the galaxy to find you." She caught a few of Jack's tears on her fingers, tenderly.

"Do you know why, my dear? Are you his lost love? Lost so long he couldn't recognize an imposter? Though she did look like you."

Then the tenderness was completely gone. "Or are you another one of his pets? Is he going to put a collar on your throat and feed you scraps from his plate? Are you going to sit at his feet while we hold court?

"Oh my dear, don't cry. Either way, you'll be taken care of, as long as he is the Lord Marshal. Better than you can imagine. You will be part of our glorious future." She put her arms around the sobbing girl, prettily.

Feeling the arms around her, Jack struggled back to some sort of control. "Who invaded Helion Prime?"

"What?"

"Who invaded Helion Prime?"

"My dear, we did. The Necromongers."

What little control Jack and wrested back shattered. Riddick was in charge of the people who destroyed the best home she'd ever had. Riddick was responsible for the death of the only people who ever loved her. She started to sob.

Dame Vaako hugged her closer, a sardonic smile twitching at her lips.

The soldiers shifted uncomfortably.

0o0o0o0o0o

Riddick was tired. Not a big fan of meetings. No, meetings to plan invasions were good, but these post-invasion post–mortems were tiresome. Yeah, he knew the casualty rates were high. Wasn't that what these folks wanted: to die in glorious battle? The army loved him for it, whatever these men were hinting.

No, he was deadly tired of this meeting. He wanted to get back to Jack. He wanted to wrap his arms around her and –

He forced himself to stop that train of thought, sighing noisily. The generals hesitated. Unsure.

In the silence, he could hear something. _Ziza_. At the door. Wanting to see her "Uncle Riddick." _Huh_.

Didn't really like her breaking into things like this . . . but . . . _Fuck it, _he thought. Shoved back from the table. The faces, mostly male, looked up worriedly. He'd added some women to the group, if only to annoy the old guard. "We're taking a break. Let her in."

The guards at the door did so, and Ziza came in, suddenly shy among all these people. He smiled at her, and she ran up to him, arms outstretched. He swung her up in his arms, knowing how much it irked his generals. They pointedly did not look.

"What's up, sweetheart?"

"Jack's here!"

"I know, kid. Where's your mother?"

"Dame Vaako made her go to her room."

His hackles raised. "Tell me," Riddick said softly. The room went dead silent.

"Me and mama were walking. And we saw Jack! And mama tried to say hi and Dame Vaako made her go to her room."

Riddick nodded to the tech taking minutes. She got to work. "Then what?"

"I ran back but they were gone. So I went to find you. 'Cause I saw Jack!"

"You did good, kid." He handed her to a random general, to the man's mortification. "Take her back to her mother."

The tech pointed to her screen, wordlessly. It showed where Jack and Dame Vaako had gone.

Riddick was not pleased to find Jack in the throne room. He was quite displeased to find her _on the very spot _that Kyra had died, looking more like Kyra than she had any right to do. He was especially displeased to see that Dame Vaako holding her, prettily, as she sobbed.

He nodded grimly at Lord Vaako, who fell into uncomfortable step beside him.

Riddick swept into the throne room, a room he avoided. Annoying. Dame Vaako looked up, a serene, almost maternal smile plastered on her face.

_Shoulda snapped her neck already, _he thought, grimly. Would have, if Vaako wasn't so doggedly loyal.

Jack looked up at him, and he saw the heartbreak in her eyes. Heartbreak and fear. Displeasure turned to rage. She was the one person in the universe who had known who he was, exactly who he was, and hadn't flinched. Who had even loved him.

And now she was terrified. Looking at him. Terrified.

He was across the room in a breath. "Go," he growled at Dame Vaako, who blinked up at him innocently. She hugged Jack one last time and uncoiled from the floor, gracefully. She and her husband left, whispering busily. Normally, he found their conversations amusing.

Without Dame Vaako's support, Jack slumped, half prostrate on the steps in front of him. She looked up and their eyes locked for an instant. His staring down at hers with unveiled fury. She seemed to become aware of her surroundings – armed men, many of them, and her half prone on the steps, unarmed. She scrambled back up the steps, away from him.

Riddick's eyes narrowed. Then she was in the air, held against him, helpless. "Not a word," he murmured into her ear.

He was drowning in her tears and it just made him angrier. What the hell had that snake said to her? And why did she listen to her? She should be able to tell she wasn't his friend.

_Maybe that's the point, _he thought, in the dim area of his brain that was not red tinged. _That woman is not your friend. She might have been trying to take this from you. Take Jack. Take one more tie from the world away from you. _

The thought stopped him cold. He tried to control his breathing, modulate his anger. Not fair to Jack. He shifted his grip slightly, moving her into a more comfortable position, guiltily aware that this was partially his fault for leaving her to be preyed upon by people like Dame Vaako. Hadn't felt guilty about anything since Kyra died. He should say something comforting.

Couldn't think of anything to say.

He tried not to stomp up the spiral staircase to his chambers. Almost took her to his bedroom so she could cry herself to sleep before realizing dimly that might panic her more. Instead, he took her to a random sitting room. Set her down on a couch. Crouched in front of her.

At least she had stopped crying. But her fear was still palpable.

He reached for her face to wipe away lingering tears. She jerked away from him. Despite himself, he scowled at her.

"It's me, kid. You know I'm not going to hurt you. What's gotten into you?"

She stared at him, wide eyed. "Abu's dead?"

_Oh fuck. _"Yes."

"Your . . ." she was clearly struggling with the concept, "your _armies_ killed him?"

"Before they were mine. I killed the man who did it."

Did she relax slightly? At least she was making eye contact, searching his face, though her grief was still palatable.

_What had she thought? That I killed the old man? Did that snake say that to her? _

"These . . . armies . . . destroyed New Mecca?"

"Yes. Before they were mine."

Real pain in her eyes. After a moment, she said softly. "And Kyra?"

"What do you know about Kyra?" He rumbled, not able to keep the automatic menace from creeping back into his voice. Her relaxation vanished. She looked away, something new in her eyes.

Anger. She had the gall to be angry with him.

Riddick's fury returned full force, now directed at her. "It's partially your fucking fault. If you had just kept your fuckin' mouth shut; if you'd just stayed put, none of this would have happened."

Her anger boiled over. "If I'd _what?_ You have no clue what you are talking about, you asshole."

He almost backhanded her. Controlled it, barely. Kept his voice low. "If you'd stayed put, I would have taken you and Abu outta here before the Necros came. Or if you'd just kept your mouth shut, I never would have thought Kyra was you, and none of this would have happened."

Her mouth was working, but no sound came out. Finally, she shoved him back. He was enough off balance that he let her.

"Right. Okay. Lemme tell you what happened. Why I didn't 'stay put.' Why I didn't 'keep my mouth shut.'"

He backed off, slightly, but left his hands lightly on her knees. Waiting. She seemed to be struggling with the words.

At last she returned to the story. "After you left, we told everyone you were dead. Even the mercs. Lied to their faces. Owed you that. Owed you everything." She looked down at his hands, her anger ebbing. Her grief was unchanged.

"Guess some didn't buy it. I got . . . They didn't bother asking any questions. Had a telepath take what he wanted right out of my head. They weren't happy that I didn't know where you were. But they were really interested in the fact you kept coming back for me."

Her eyes stayed down. "They thought . . . they thought you wouldn't want to see me hurt. That you'd come back for me again.

"So they hurt me. And they did it . . . artistically. And sent out pictures. Guess some people like to see that stuff. Thought it might get passed around, get your attention."

She closed her eyes. There was a long silence. "It got someone's attention. Kyra's. She and her crew hacked in, to figure out what was going on. Saw the telepath's report. That's how she would have known what happened. What you said. What I said. Everything."

She glanced up at him for only an instant. His eyes were murderous. She looked away. "She killed them all. Fixed me up, took me back to Abu. Left me there. Just like you. Didn't need a little kid hanging around. Just like you."

The room was silent. She looked up at him at last, eyes clear. "So don't you tell me I should have just stayed put and kept my mouth shut. I tried my fucking best. Sorry I fucked it up. I'm only human. Sorry I'm not made of fire and steel like you."

She thrust herself up, shoved past him, walked to the far side of the room. He stared after her, his earlier irritation at her for not being Kyra washed away.

Damn it, she was crying again, silently this time. He came up behind her, softly. Put his arms around her. She stiffened, seemed to consider pulling away. He pulled her closer, gently, inexorably.

"I'm sorry. I would have come," he growled, softly, "if I'd known."

She sighed, relaxing slightly into his arms. "Thank you."

"You sure they are all dead?"

"Yeah. Real sure."

"Hm."

Long silence.

"Why would she pretend to be you?"

Incongruously, she laughed. "I think she was trying to protect me. That's why I was at that school. She thought I'd be safe there." She laughed again. He could feel it deep inside him. Even if it was slightly hysterical, it felt good.

"Why'd the old man tell me you ran away?"

She made a little noise and tried to pull away. He wasn't ready to let her do that. Still, sensing her begin to panic, he eased off, a little. Let her get a step between them. She sank to the floor and drew her knees up to her chest. He crouched down beside her and waited.

Her voice was small, childlike. "I thought if I told the police I was kidnapped they'd investigate, and they'd find out about you. But if I said I ran away, I'd just be some stupid kid who got hurt. And I didn't want Abu to think it was his fault."

Something broke inside him. He stood up without looking at her, walked to a view screen, punched up one of his favorite images. An image of a sun falling into a black hole. He stared at it for a long time before finally looking back at her. She was a ball of misery.

He couldn't stand it. Two steps, he had her in his arms, carried her back to the couch. Took one of her hands in both of his. "I got this thing I gotta do. Just – just sit tight. Play with the computer if you want. Or you could hang with Lajjun and Ziza. We'll have dinner. Talk before bed."

She was staring at their joined hands, seemingly fascinated.

"I'll stay here. I could use some time to get my head together."

"Good girl. Tell the guards at the door if you need anything." He ruffled her hair affectionately, his hand pausing a moment too long on her neck, then he loped off.

**0o0o0o0o0o**

She stared after him for a very long time, long after the tears had finally stopped coming every time she thought of Kyra, or Abu, or home.

Thirst finally motivated her to start exploring.

Not all of the doors opened. Those that did were confusing. Beautiful rooms, absolutely immaculate, most completely unused. Multiple bedrooms. A huge, ornate dining room that did not look like it had ever had food in it. Well appointed conference rooms. A room with a waterfall and an enormous pool that might never have been swum in. Only the gymnasium looked like it was used.

_Where am I? These rooms don't make sense. All this space, no people. Who lives here? _

Then she found a bedroom. Obviously Riddick's, based on the number of weapons, some she recognized, lovingly arranged on various surfaces. It was tidy, but unlike the other rooms, this hadn't been cleaned immaculate. There were books, a computer that actually looked like someone used it for games. The bed was carelessly made. She could tell which side he slept on.

Morbidly curious about what he might keep in his closets, she took the opportunity to explore. The first had fairly casual clothes. The second a selection of uniforms and ornate helmets she could not imagine him wearing.

The third had the clothes Dame Vaako had picked for her already hanging neatly, and many boxes neatly stacked, with her name on them. Feeling a sense of inevitability, she opened one.

The things from her dorm room. Books, clothes, things Kyra had given her. The lesson plans for the rest of the term. Her eyes started to prickle again.

It was a big closet and there were a lot of boxes. She kept exploring, found most of the things Kyra told her to leave behind in New Mecca. She sat back. There were implications. Riddick had everything she had owned in seven years neatly packed. In his bedroom. She should get out of here. She wasn't up to dealing with Riddick's expectations about their sleeping arrangements.

Though it wouldn't be like they'd never slept together. But that was just sleep. Just safer to be close to him in some of the places they'd traveled through.

Safer. Yeah. He never shared a bed with Abu. Why hadn't that ever occurred to me before? She'd think about that some other time. She changed into jeans and a t-shirt she never thought she would see again and went hunting for a computer console somewhere other than this room.

Hours later, Jack knew much more about Necromongers. And it scared the shit out of her.

They worshiped, as near as she could tell, death. They called it, as far as she could figure out, "The Threshold." They claimed there was a better world beyond. The evidence was the reports of successive "Lord Marshals." Leaders who claimed to have visited there, who claimed that their lives were a living testament to this "better world" people kept talking about. Religious fanatics, dedicated to bringing the one true law to every living thing, and to purify the galaxy of anyone who would not accept the one true law.

Nonsense on stilts.

On top of this religious fanaticism, which was at least open to anyone, was something else that just didn't fit; a brutal materialist ethos. You keep what you kill. Why Riddick was the Lord Marshal, even though he had not accepted the faith, simply because he had killed the last one. He'd be the Lord Marshal until someone killed him, or until he named a successor and "passed the threshold." He maintained his position because he was the biggest bad around – and because he won his battles. The fights he led, the Necromongers came back victorious, though with truly astonishing mortality rates.

Riddick, doing horrible things in the name of a faith he had not accepted. He was more of a monster than she had ever imagined.

_Then why is Ziza here? _

Nothing on the computer had illuminated that point. Ziza looked fine. Happy and strong. Not converted. The Necromongers usually killed children, and never bore them. They converted what they conquered; they did not breed their own. It didn't make sense.

She realized she was starving. She didn't understand the time pieces, but it had been hours since Riddick had left her here saying he'd come back for dinner.

_Gotta be food here somewhere. And some door has people behind it. _She started exploring again.

Found herself back in the bedroom, staring at the bed. Maybe it was time to think this through.

Would it be that bad, to sleep with him? He didn't snore or hog the covers . . .

_That's not really the problem here. You were a child then, and for whatever reason, he was protecting you. Now you're a woman he thinks he has some sort of claim over. _

_Doesn't he? _

_Doesn't mean he gets to fuck me. _

No it doesn't. But back to the first question: would it really be that bad? He's breathtaking. You know he loves you, in his own idiosyncratic way. You loved him. Maybe you still do. You had a crush on him for years.

_Yeah. Right up to the point I got tortured and gang raped because of him. And now he's taken me from everything I knew and locked me in his rooms on a warship._

_And now I've got no one else. _

She shuddered. Stood up, turned around, and walked directly into Riddick. She'd forgotten how silently he could move. She was mortified he'd found her in his bedroom. Riddick smiled down on her with more teeth than she liked. "Ready?" he rumbled, low, hungrily.

She backed up fast. "Uh -- "

"Food's here. Come on." He took her hand, and led her from the room, her face flaming, wishing she'd at least found shoes.


	4. Getting Used to Each Other Again

Jack was clearly hungry, and he made sure the food would be exquisite. There was even wine, which she said she'd drunk only a few times in her life. Riddick ate and drank lightly, but made sure her plate and glass were full. He found his eyes never left her.

When her hunger seemed sated, she smiled up at him. "This was wonderful. Do you eat like this every night?"

"No. Only on special occasions."

She blushed again. With the food and wine, she seemed relaxed, sleepy, less guarded. She yawned.

"Sorry."

"Don't apologize. Been a long day." He smiled at her, and for the first time since she woke, she made eye contact with him while smiling. He reached for her hand, and this time she did not flinch.

"Why were you so afraid of me back in the throne room?" he asked, softly.

She sighed, and looked away. "Well, you sent heavily armed men in a warship to forcibly remove me from a supposedly safe school. That's kinda scary, Riddick."

"Kid, you left with a woman who ended up in a triple max slam pretending to be you. I figured you needed to be extracted."

"I wish you'd asked me."

He stared at her. The thought had simply never occurred. Not that he would have let her say no, anyway. He finally shrugged. "Sorry."

She looked down at his hand again. Took a deep breath. "Dame Vaako said I was here to replace Kyra . . ." she trailed off.

"Not replacing anyone. I want you." Surprised to find that was the unvarnished truth.

She nodded, smiled quickly, and yawned again. She giggled. "Sorry. I don't drink often."

His lips twitched. He stroked her hand. "Did she say anything else?"

She made another one of those small noises in the back of her throat and pulled away. Something twisted inside of him.

"Jack . . ."

She wouldn't look at him. "That I was here to be a . . . pet. That you'd put a collar on my throat and make me sit at your feet . . ."

His jaw twitched slightly. He was going to kill that woman slowly. No wonder Jack was so terrified. He managed to say, lightly "well, they have an interesting personal life, the Vaakos. Not quite what I was planning."

She yawned again, looked embarrassed. "What are you planning?"

"Not sure yet. I just wanted you . . . here. I'm sorry I didn't come back for you before."

"It's okay. I can't spend my life being rescued by you."

He laughed, softly. "I don't think it's going to come up again."

She gave him a strange look, giggled again. "Because you think I can finally take care of myself?"

"Because you are safe here. No one will touch you."

"You think I'm staying here?"

"You're staying here, kid."

She went from giggly to pissed off without transition. "Since when is that your decision?"

_What the hell is she talking about? Why the hell would she want to go anyway? She'd been happy enough to see me._

_Dame Vaako. Right. _ His own anger started to build. She was messing with both of their heads, the snake.

He got control, took a deep breath. "You just got here. Do you really want to go already?"

"No! But that's not the point! You don't have the right to just yank me out of my life and lock me up in your rooms!"

He laughed. "Maybe you're right. In a perfect world. We ain't in one." He let his voice drop low and menacing. "The one we're in, you're better off with me than bein' used against me."

She pushed herself away from the table and walked to the other side of the room, staring at the image of a sun in the process of being devoured by a black hole. It suddenly seemed voyeuristic, sadistic, and he wondered why he'd picked it. Might have been better to go with something soothing. A nice seascape, maybe.

He came up behind her again softly, like death stalking on little cat feet. She did not hear him until he caressed her neck with one finger. She stood rigid.

He thought about telling her just to live with it. He thought about being the villain of the piece, doing exactly what Dame Vaako said he would do. Put her in chains so she could never leave . . .

_I'm getting too used to telling people what to do, _he thought, ruefully. And of people doing what he wanted without being asked. Might be good to have someone around who wasn't like that. Someone who thought she could say no. He ran a finger down the side of her face and exposed neck, marveling at the goose bumps; the rush of heat. "Stay. Please."

She relaxed slightly, turned to look at him. "Stay as what?"

He blinked. He still hadn't considered that; hadn't much thought past the point that she re-entered his orbit. Wasn't sticking her in the nursery with Ziza and her pack. Or alone in a tower like Aereon. "Maybe . . . maybe that's where your real choices come in. Sister. Friend. Bodyguard. Pet . . . " he said, teasingly.

"Infantry?"

He snorted. That was not happening. He could tell her that later. "Sure. But you'd have to become a necro."

She considered that solemnly. "Bodyguard?"

"Might take some training. But it would be useful."

She laughed, unsteadily. "Don't mistake me for Kyra. She was the killer assassin." She yawned again.

_Kyra was an assassin? _"I know you're not her." His voice was soft.

She turned around to look at the sun spiraling into oblivion. "Were you lovers?" she asked, a little too abruptly, her back to him.

"Jesus, kid, we were together for less than two days."

She shivered."You didn't answer my question."

"No, we weren't lovers."

"Did you want to be?"

He blinked at that too. Was that what was going on? He wanted to fuck a dead woman?

With a pang he realized, in a way, it was. He had been utterly besotted with her. And he'd felt guilty, because he knew her as a child, had been her older brother, in a way. And then he realized that none of that was true, and he was left . . . rootless, except for unsatisfied desire. Even the desire was rootless.

Yes, he wanted to fuck Kyra.

But this was Jack. The girl he really had known as a child. Who was now all mixed up in his head with Kyra.

"Dunno. Never really thought about it."

She turned around. He was so close, she brushed up against him as she did so. She backed up a little, putting herself square against the view screen. He stayed still as she searched his face.

"Why am I here?"

"Because I want you to be."

She made a move like she was going to slip away, and he put his hands flat on the screen, on either side of her head. She stared at one for a moment before turning back to face him. "What do you want from me, Riddick?"

He let the silence linger until she started to squirm. Then he smiled down on her, slightly. "Dunno yet."

"But you expect me to sleep with you."

"Been lookin' forward to that."

Her fear was back. He sighed, regretting teasing her. Regretted the loss of the easy intimacy they used to have. They'd slept in the same bed nearly every night after he realized the speculative looks, and sometimes more, she had been attracting. "I'm just talking about sleep tonight. I've missed you. I liked waking up with you safe beside me. And it's kinda late to be makin' other arrangements." _Well, most of that is true. _

She yawned again. "I can't think straight right now."

"Let's get you ready for bed."

She giggled, dreamily, her earlier anger seemingly forgotten in the narcotic of exhaustion. "You'll be here when I wake up this time?"

"I promise."

* * *

She was dead asleep before she finished changing. He undressed her carefully and carried her to bed. Maybe it had been a dirty trick, drugging her food.

_Oh well._ Made sense at the time. She'd been so volatile, so afraid. Guess he should have waited to wake her up until he could have stayed with her. Not given Belinda Vaako the opportunity to sink her fangs in. He should have given her time to adjust, someplace safe, someplace without Necros.

Waking up beside him, safe and warm, would be good for her. Or, at least, he knew it would be good for him.

He laid her on top of the covers and ran his hands over her body, lightly, trying to imagine the sort of person who would have a body like hers. Fairly muscular. Sweetly curved. Some scars, but nothing like the scars Kyra's body carried. Was she beautiful? He thought she might be. But he was so overwhelmed by the fact she was alive and here that it was hard to tell.

Her body suddenly seemed utterly alien. He really didn't know what he was going to do with her. Hadn't let himself think about it. He wrapped her up in a soft shirt and tucked her in to his bed, not ready for sleep. Decided he should read the damn report after all.

It didn't make him happy. Oh, they did what he told them to do – even tried not to use direct force, exactly, just threats. Jack turned herself over to his men to save lives. Guess that part was okay, though he didn't like thinking of her afraid. But she had panicked when they had confirmed who she was. Something about that sickened him.

According to the commander's report, she had actually pulled out of the grip of one of his soldiers, Nirgal. He knew him, picked him special for the mission. A big guy, solid, without a hint of the sadism that infected some Necro soldiers. She had knocked down the telepath. _Wuss_. She'd almost made it out the window before his men had her contained. A gifted fighter. He liked that.

But her injuries, they said, were the direct consequence of a suicide attempt, with a knife he'd put in her hands. He really didn't like that.

The telepath's report was more cryptic. He said that he had inadvertently triggered "an unfortunate chain of associations" in confirming her identity. "An unfortunate chain of associations" that almost ended with her slitting her own throat?

He summoned the man to his chambers. He was named Tier, not wuss, he'd have to remember that. While waiting for him, he secured all the weapons in his room. Never occurred to him she might use them against herself. He had been planning on giving her back her knife tomorrow. Not happening now. She was going to need bodyguards until he was sure of her. Probably good for her to have them anyway.

Tier was a slight man. He appeared cautiously at the door to his bedroom. "Hail, Lord Marshal."

Riddick turned slowly. The room was dark; the man could barely see him. Which might be why he was gazing at Jack with a curious look of tenderness. Tenderness was not a Necromonger emotion. Decided to think about that later.

"Come." Riddick led him to the next room. Riddick sat down, gestured the man to a seat. "You looked in her head?"

"Yes, sir."

"And she tried to kill herself."

"Yes, sir," Tier said, quietly.

"Why?"

"I did not probe her. I cannot be certain without doing that."

"Guess."

Not unlike Jack, Tier looked away. "It seems that some time ago, she was . . . brutalized by men trying to use her to get to you. When I put your image in her head to see if she recognized you she thought . . . history was repeating. She was unwilling to live through it again."

_I am a total idiot, _Riddick thought. Of course, that would be it. Poor kid. Poor little kid. "You know what they did to her."

"Yes."

"What?"

The man flushed scarlet. Embarrassment was also not a Necromonger emotion.

"I get the feeling I don't want to know," Riddick muttered.

Tier looked at him with something like gratitude. "I wish I didn't."

There was silence. Finally, Riddick asked, quietly. "Any advice?"

"Depends on what you want. You want her adjusted now, convert her."

"No fucking way," Riddick growled. The man flinched, swallowed, nodded.

"Then go slow. Give her time to adjust. She's very strong, but she hasn't processed what happened. She just shut down that part of her life. Being . . . taken by armed men from a safe place will trigger bad associations."

_Damn. _

The small man looked down, then asked, cautiously, "She was from New Mecca?"

"Sorta."

"She will also need time to grieve for her home. Or for any people left behind."

_Right. Grief. _

Tier met his eyes, and there was almost a challenge in them. "She associates you with death. And she's a little in love with death. Maybe because of you. Maybe it was safer to fall in love with an abstract concept than a vanished person. But if things get too hard for her, she might turn from you to it."

Riddick sent the man away. Stood in the doorway and stared at Jack for a long time.

* * *

She woke up confused, in a soft bed, in pitch darkness, with a warm body wrapped around her. One extraordinarily heavy arm curled around her waste, the other curved under her neck.

She tried to keep her breathing even. Not betray wakefulness until she knew what was going on. She wasn't the type of girl to just go to bed with some guy –

No, not some guy. _Riddick. _Riddick, who had saved her life again and again. Riddick, who sent armed men in a warship after her. Riddick, who had her poked and prodded and dressed up like a doll and hadn't told her that her best friends in the world were dead because of him –

---No. That wasn't fair. Kyra never would have been anywhere near him if it wasn't for her. And Abu was killed by an invading army that, at the time, he had nothing to do with.

She found herself absently stroking his forearm, marveling at the musculature; at its inhuman size. He seemed dead asleep, his slow breathing almost narcotic. He was right; there was something nice about waking up with someone.

_Maybe this isn't so bad. _

Aside from the fact she was in the bed of a brutal killer who was also the absolute monarch of a people dedicated to removing all sentient life from the universe.

_Right. Maybe it is so bad. _

Well, she didn't have to save the universe right now. Now, it was time to pee.

New problem. His arm was dead weight across her. She couldn't move it. Finally, she whispered, "Riddick?

"Yeah, kid?"

The asshole hadn't been asleep at all. Just laid there letting her first stroke, then struggle with, his arm. She was glad he couldn't see her face. "I gotta go to the bathroom."

He sighed. "Lights, dim." The room was suffused with the barest of glows. He let go reluctantly. She pulled herself out of bed, the air uncomfortably cool against her bare arms and legs. She didn't recognize the shirt she was wearing. She didn't remember changing clothes.

She took her time, washing her face and stretching before cautiously making her way back. All of the weapons were gone; something about that bothered her. She finally looked at Riddick, who was gazing up at her like a contented house cat. He patted the bed next to him. Telling herself she was cold, she crawled back under the covers and he wrapped his arms around her as if had the right to do so. As if he had done the same thing every night for years.

"Sorry I freaked out yesterday," she offered, gingerly.

"'sokay."

"You're sweet, in your own homicidal way."

"Yeah. I'm a softy."

She laughed, a little unsteadily. "So, now what?"

He nuzzled the back of her neck, sending an unfamiliar shiver through her. "Breakfast, see if you've been keeping up with your self defense training, coffee with Lajjun and Ziza; lunch if I can get away; definitely dinner and back to bed. Maybe introduce you to Aereon."

"You got it all figured out?"

"Yeah. But we don't have to get up right away." One hand was back on the curve of her belly, stroking it slightly, the other was wrapped around her chest, pinning her.

_He doesn't think there are any boundaries between us_. _Not sure what to do about that. What do you do when the brutal killer who saved you as a child kidnaps you and takes you to bed, anyway? _Nothing in her education had prepared her for that.

_Sure it has, _something treacherous suggested. _When rape is inevitable, lay back and enjoy. At least he likes you. And it's not kidnapping when a government does it, is it? _She shivered. "What do you want to do now?" she asked, uncertainly.

"Let's just lay here for a while. Get used to each other again."


	5. You Could Be

They fell into a rhythm. Mornings, they'd work out together for an hour or more, mostly unarmed combat. He'd either disappear while she was showering, or they would have a more substantial meal with Ziza and her pack of playmates. Some times, Lajjun would join them, though Riddick clearly made her uncomfortable. Most days, she'd visit Aereon.

Aereon was a mystery. Not a Necromonger. Not human. Riddick consulted with her sometimes. She had her own chambers high in the Necropolis, and her own guards. Jack had the sense she wanted to leave, but couldn't. She was friendly and open but terribly hard to understand.

Sometimes Riddick would join them for lunch. She'd spend the afternoon and early evening alone studying, for whatever reason given her likely future, and beating up things in the gym. Usually he'd eat dinner with her, often not taking his eyes off of her the entire meal. Made her feel funny. Sometimes the meal would just appear, and she'd eat by herself. More than a few times she went to bed alone, only to wake up with him wrapped around her. The one time she fell asleep on a couch somewhere in the rooms, he'd found her and carried her to bed without a word.

Despite the conversation that first night, he never brought up where she would sleep, and somehow, she couldn't bring herself to broach the subject. Not that she really wanted to sleep alone, but sometimes, she longed for some place that was hers. Even Ziza had that. Would Kyra have put up with not having that?

She was fairly sure he wanted something. But he seemed to be . . . waiting for some signal from her. It was beginning to feel strange.

He never suggested she leave his rooms. Most doors he used were locked against her. The one that wasn't locked was heavily guarded, by men who made it absolutely clear she would be walking out of that room only in the center of a square of soldiers. She hadn't yet. Though Ziza did it all the time, and was beginning to be insistent that she come with her.

Despite the isolation, she could almost be content. Having Riddick's undivided attention for hours every day was intoxicating; she had repressed just how much she'd missed him over the years. She slept better than she ever had, and somewhat to her surprise, she found she had the discipline to keep up with her studies. If she didn't know what was happening outside the walls of these rooms, she could almost be happy.

If she didn't know that the whole fucking point was to take some chosen people, make them immortal, and end any further creation. World everlasting. No more children. No more evolution.

And everyone who thought differently killed.

What little contentment she'd built was dwindling. For the last three days, Riddick had returned only long after she had at last fallen asleep, smelling of smoke and shredded metal and blood. He'd slip in bed with an exaggerated gentleness that made her feel churlish for wanting to ask where he had been. For the last three days, he had been gone before she woke up. Aside from a daily token visit with Ziza and Aereon, she spent the days shadow boxing and studying Necromongers, becoming increasingly certain she was in the belly of the beast, veiled from true evil only by the whim of a killer.

As her contentment faded, blackness began to wrap its thick arms around her. She found herself thinking more and more about Kyra, dead, Abu, dead, New Mecca, dead. About waking up in a space ship in a cage, bound hand and foot, teetering at the edge of that nightmare time she still could not think about directly. About how these rooms were a kinder, gentler, cage, but still a cage. About what Riddick was probably doing while she ate exquisite food from beautiful plates and wandered barefoot through sumptuous rooms.

There was always wine brought with dinner. She didn't usually drink it, after getting so drunk that first night. But on the fourth night, instead of eating, she drank that night's wine, and the wine from the night before, and the wine from the night before that. Maybe that's why she couldn't bear it any more. Maybe that's why she stayed awake this time.

As he was undressing, she asked, feeling inane, "What did you do today?"

He stopped and stared down at her, expressionless. "My job," he said, at last.

"Kill anyone?"

She thought he wasn't going to answer. Finally, he continued to undress. "Yes."

For the first time, he was utterly naked and utterly beautiful in front of her. Always before he'd worn something to bed. She swallowed, unsure. But she'd far drunk more than she probably should have, and rushed ahead. "You know the Necromongers are evil. Why don't we just leave?"

He gave her a strange look as he slid under the covers, turned her unresisting body to face him.

"Jack, I am not a good person."

"Liar," she whispered.

His lips twitched. "Maybe you bring out the best in me. Sometimes."

She stroked his cheek, cautiously. "What is the best of you, Riddick?"

His voice dropped lower. "I am a killer of men. I have done such things . . ." his voice trailed off, distantly, lost. He mirrored her gesture, stroking her face, his touch almost reverent.

"The best things I have ever done," he spoke slowly, as if savoring the words, the tastes of their shapes and spaces, "the best thing I have ever done for you . . ."

He trailed off again, almost as if to end the sentence was to end the world. His hand on her face was tender, sending shivers cascading deep inside of her.

"But the _worst _thing I've ever done to you . . ." his voice was heavy. His hand stilled.

"The worst you did was leaving me," she whispered, wishing she was brave enough to kiss his fingers.

He sighed. His voice was an exhalation from a tomb.

"Maybe it was. But if you had come with me, then, you would be like me, now. There would be so much blood on your small hands . . . " He started to caress those hands, trapped between them, gently, lovingly.

"There is blood on my hands," she replied, almost hypnotized. Remembering.

"Every drop my fault."

She wanted to deny it. Couldn't find the words.

"The worse I've done to you --" He started to roll her over, to move her into the position they usually slept in. One of his hands brushed across the bottom of one of her breasts, and his breath caught, ragged. He closed his eyes and pressed his forehand hard against hers until his breathing grew steady again.

_Should I kiss him? If he wants to kiss, why doesn't he kiss me? _

"Was it sending my men to take you?"

"I would have come," she whispered, "if you'd asked."

"Not possible." His voice was a feather light caress in the darkness. "Not. If I had asked, and you had said no . . ." his voice slid away from the words, his eyes closed, and he was quiet so long she thought he had fallen asleep.

Then he finished rolling her over, held her close, whispered into her ear. "Was it saving you from the monsters?"

"How can you ask me that?" Her voice cracked. The air itself was becoming something new. Thicker. Stranger. Predatory.

He stroked her hair, gently. "I chose you. And because of that, people died. . ." His voice drained away into an abyss of regret.

"You think it's my fault they died?" she whispered, teetering at the edge of heartbreak.

He didn't answer, but he tightened his grip on her, almost loving. "Is the worst thing I've done to you holding you here?"

"If you'd ask . . ." she started to say. But his hand was covering her mouth, completely.

_I must be dreaming, _she thought, almost in tears. She must be dreaming because Riddick could not be saying these things, doing these things, to her.

"Hush, hush, mei mei. If I ask . . ."

His voice was the voice of a wanderer in the outer darkness.

"If I ask, then the worst thing I will have done to you is give you a choice. Because if you choose wrong . . ."

And she knew she must be dreaming, because his voice was no longer carried by the air, but by some thing that was old long before the air separated from the waters. She must be dreaming because instead of a man, she was wrapped in the heavy coils of a gigantic snake undulating slightly against her, lapping over her, around her wrists, over her mouth.

"If you choose wrong . . ." his voice breathed from the underworld.

But she never heard what would happen to her if she chose wrong. Instead, she slipped from the coils of the snake into the warm and dark waters of a great ocean, lit, dismally, barely, by a moon lower and larger and more shadowed than any moon should be. She drifted in and out of sleep resting on the face of the waters.

They were mostly narcotically peaceful. But from time to time those waters would churn and get sticky with blood. From time to time, strange slippery dead things would break the face of the waters. Sometimes they would brush against her skin, and she'd swim as far as she could before great flocks of malevolent sea birds would appear, rip them apart, and disappear. She floated in those waters forever, uneasy, alone, waiting.

She knew leviathans were battling deep below her. Their blood boiled up from below.

She knew, somehow, someday soon, the victorious leviathan would break through the face of the waters.

She knew horrible things were coming.

Riddick was gone in the morning.

* * *

While Necromonger victory was assured, tiny cells still battled, valiantly, hopelessly, against their overwhelming force. Riddick waded into one of these battles, and had actually been burned bad enough to hurt.

When it was over, late at night, he allowed himself to be persuaded to the med deck where, amidst much cautious tut tutting about putting himself at unnecessary risk, the skin was regrown.

They ushered him to a comfortable room in a secluded corner of the deck. A young doctor seemed delighted to help take his mind off of the time. He lost himself in her for hours and hours, before falling asleep tangled in her limbs and, for the first time since Jack had come, sated.

He woke several times to the unfamiliar smell of the woman next to him, and he would think of reasons not to return to his rooms.

Not long before morning came, he nuzzled the doctor, and she turned and smiled at him. They were kissing, thrusting, sweating and he had another reason not to go to his rooms before beginning the day's serious business of completing the inevitable conquest.

But the real reason he stayed away this time was that he was guiltily aware he had terrified Jack. The shamefully intoxicating smell of her fear lingered in his nose, cutting through the acrid bite of burning metal, and the heady scents of blood and desire.

He felt bad. And it worried him that he could not remember the words that seemed to well out from some almost unknown oracular place deep inside of him. The place the Quasi-Deads had touched, and found her. The place a woman in a dream had touched, and he had exploded, dying a little in the sands of a dead world before a long lost brother had swapped skins with him, and taken his place in the inferno.

He didn't really want to touch that place again. Didn't want to know that place again. Didn't want to know what welled out of that place, again. The idea that Jack might be a key to that part of himself was . . . unsettling.

He also missed the smart ass kid she'd been. Sometimes, he saw sparks of that . . . but she'd become so cautious; so careful. So afraid.

There was a victory to solidify. He put all else out of his mind.

* * *

Jack woke up alone again, only this time, there was not even the lingering imprint of his body beside her. She had slept alone for the first time since she had come to this dead city.

Was he ashamed of what he had said to her?

Was he tired of being with her?

What would happen to her if he was?

She began to believe she had dreamed his words. Hadn't he already asked her to stay? Impossible to believe he'd say such things to her. Impossible to believe he'd use that voice that went straight to the secret places deep inside. That he'd put his hand over her mouth, muffle her while he fell asleep.

_Why the hell does he want me here anyway? _

_Fuck this. Snap out of it. _ Time to venture upstairs to talk to Lajjun, Ziza and the interchangeable children that scurried around them.

As she came up the stairs she heard voices she thought she would never hear again. Lajjun's sister, Zoe, and her nephew, Gabriel. They'd never really liked each other. Still, they embraced warmly, made happy noises. Enjoyed Ziza's happiness with her playmate; Gabe's happiness at the abundance of food.

As soon as she could, Lajjun pulled her aside. "Be careful what you wish for," she said in a voice full of bitterness. "Our Lord Marshal is sporadically indulgent. Ziza said she missed them almost a year ago, and he sent a full detachment to systematically take refugee camps until they found them."

"Take?"

"Conquer. Converted or killed everyone but those two. Never said a word about it until he came by yesterday to drop them off. He's Ziza's hero, all over again."

_He did that? _

The thought was horrifying.

_Would he do that for me? _She thought of her classmates, her teachers, people she had cared about, people she thought she'd never see again. She thought about Kyra. For a moment, she was drowning in the longing for their presence, their normalcy.

_Should I ask him to do that for me? Send a warship to gather my friends? _

The thought was horrifyingly tempting. But no, she wouldn't, she couldn't. Couldn't do to someone else what he had done to her, rip them from friends and family to be a diversion from the darkness.

But the temptation to ask was almost physically painful.

Then the other implication hit her. _He came to see Ziza yesterday, but not to see me? _It hurt in an unexpectedly squashy way.

_ You two do have a more complicated relationship, _that treacherous part of her whispered back. _You're afraid of him, and he knows it. And he's probably getting tired of it. Not like he's done anything to you . . . _

_ Nothing but kidnap you, isolate you, and, at best, treated you like a pet. _

She made her excuses and left. Went to the little gymnasium and punched the practice dummy until her knuckles bled.

* * *

When she got out of the gym, there was food. Once again, enough for one. _I'm going to die of isolation, _she thought.

That night, at last, Riddick came back. She was already in bed, but not too long there. She watched him undress and said, softly, "I missed you last night."

He gave her an unreadable look. "Got burned. Slept in the med deck."

She was out from under the covers and in front of him. "Burned? Let me see."

He smiled indulgently, put her hand on his skin under his rib cage. "Good as new." He held her hand on his bare skin for a heart beat longer than he needed to. Finally, she pulled away.

"Kill anyone?"

He gave her a hard look, and she wondered just how much of what happened last time really was a dream. Finally, he continued to undress. "Yes."

As if she was completing a ritual, she continued. "You know the Necromongers are evil. Why don't we just leave?"

But he broke the spell, broke the pattern. "First, someone worse will just take my place."

"So that makes it okay? That you think it's better with you in charge?"

He slid under the covers and wrapped his arms around her, and, just like before, rolled her over to face him. She was uncomfortably aware of his bare skin against her. Uncomfortably aware of him handling her, making her do what she wanted as if he had no question it was his right to do so. He breathed into her ear, "much better."

"But not good."

He sighed. "Got a better solution?"

"Just stop. If we can't leave, change them. Make them be good."

After a painfully long time, he answered, his voice even lower than usual. "Been killing people the last few days. Some bad people. Some good people. Some by issuing orders. Some with my hands."

"I broke an admiral's neck with these hands today." A hand began kneading her neck. She shivered.

"I felt her die. We won. They surrendered. Their allies never came." Once again, he rolled her over, gently, spooning her from behind.

"I gave them all a choice. Convert or die. Every living one chose conversion."

His voice and hands, one slow on her spine, the other moving lower than it ever had before, were almost hypnotic. She managed, somehow, to formulate words. "How do you know they won't turn on you?"

"Doesn't work that way. Usually. People take the mark," and he started caressing her neck again, slowly, surely, "and they believe. They are Necromongers. And the Necromongers are mine."

She thought for a moment he was finally going to kiss her, kiss her neck on the spot every Necromonger was marked. His breath was hot and his lips were close. Finally, agonizingly slow, he pulled back. "They are also mine because I win. Stopping would be suicide."

"And if I die, who would protect you?"

_I wouldn't need protecting if it wasn't for you, _she thought, bitterly. She couldn't bring herself to say it.

After a long time, he sighed, seemed to take pity on her. "Find a solution that doesn't risk you, me, or Ziza, and I'll think about it."

His hands stilled and he drifted into a deep sleep. She laid awake a long time.

* * *

Kyra was trying to show her some move or another; one of those step, step, thrust, moves that looked elegant and simple when Kyra did it, but Jack just couldn't make her muscles work that way. Even though she'd seen Kyra kill a man with this move. Maybe because she'd seen her kill a man with this move. Even though they were only using dummy weapons, mocked up knives that gave an electrical shock when they struck.

Finally, Kyra stopped, glared at her, angry. "You're not doing it right. You're still not doing it right. You need to get it right. Or you're just going to be useless when the time comes."

Jack backed up, tossed down the weapon. "You think my destiny is to be a killer? Isn't that why the gods made people like you and Riddick?"

"You are people like us. Or you should be."

"Maybe I don't want to be."

Kyra lashed out a kick so fast Jack didn't even see her muscles twitch. Then she was flat on her back, Kyra pinning her; a hand across Jack's windpipe. Her voice was low and malicious.

"I'm going to tell you some secrets, little sister. You are incredibly lucky. People like Riddick and me don't usually protect people like you. We're monsters. We eat them. We just all pretend otherwise. You sheep pretend we'll protect you, trying to trick us into buying your sentimental crap. That our highest and best destiny is to be shepherds."

Kyra's eyes bore down on her, intense, furious.

"Now, _we_ usually pretend to lure you in.

"You're family, Morrigan help me. I'll do my best to keep you from getting hurt any more than necessary. But some day, some thing is going to come out of the darkness for you, and no one is going to step in between. You need to be ready. Or you will die. And then you'll be useless."

Jack licked her lips, stared up. Said, softly. "You're wrong. It's better to be a shepherd."

Kyra snorted, applied more pressure on the throat. "Yeah. That's what the sheep think. But a shepherd's just a wolf that's learned to keep inventory."

She let Jack up, as if the lesson was over. Then Kyra had a knife in her hand. Then it was arcing for Jack's throat.

Riddick woke abruptly when Jack's body lurched like her spinal column had been severed. She shot bolt upright in bed. He could hear her heart hammering, the acrid bite of her adrenaline terror. There was no one else in the room.

He fought to keep his body relaxed. "Bad dreams?"

She spasmed, stared at him as if she'd forgotten he existed. Took a deep ragged breath. "Yeah. Bad dreams."

"Monsters again?"

There was something strange in her eyes, like some new revelation was at hand. "Dream monsters."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"I so don't."

He pulled her back down into the bed, gently. "Don't worry. I'll protect you." Wondered how her body knew what it was like to have a spinal cord snapped. Had he ever done that in front of her? Didn't think he had.

_Had someone else? _

_ Had Kyra? _

She was shuddering against him. He thought for a moment she was going to try to pull away. But instead, she rolled over and buried her face into his chest and shook for a long time.


	6. In Thy Orisons

He was there when she woke up, for the first time in days. Maybe that's why he was pushing her so hard in the gym, unforgiving of the slightest mistake or hesitation. Or maybe she had gotten under his skin last night. Finally a failed sweep kick ended with her shoved against a wall, arms held painfully high above her head with one hand. He gave her a curiously gentle look, then swung his free arm between her legs hard, hoisting her to eye level; dangling. She gasped. It hurt.

"How are _you_ going to get out of this?" he asked.

Something about his intonation was strange. _You. _As opposed to . . .

"You did this to Kyra."

"Huh?"

"You shoved Kyra against a wall like this. And she got out of it."

Hesitation. "Yes."

"Why?"

"Stuck a knife in my back."

"What? Why? When?"

He shrugged eloquently, and pulled her arms higher, forcing her shoulders painfully against the wall.

"How'd she get out of it?"

He smiled, toothily. "That'd be cheating."

She closed her eyes, feeling surreal. Trying to think it through. Getting images she wasn't liking. The two of them, locked into this position. Opened her eyes, stared into his levelly.

"Head butt?"

He shook his head slowly. "Nope. Hurt you more than me."

"Teeth?"

"That might work. Go for the ear or nose."

She tried, but he wouldn't let her get close. He was smiling in a way she didn't like, and her arms were beginning to ache, bone deep. She tried to breath, tried to relax. Both were increasingly hard to do.

"She would have been armed."

He nodded.

"She would have distracted you."

He nodded again.

Something snapped into place.

"You're trying to replay this. You want it to go differently this time. Whatever happened between you two."

He went strangely still. "You got a plan, or are you gonna talk me to death? You will get tired before I do."

_Fuck this. _She deliberately relaxed as much as she could. "Yeah. I got a plan. I give."

"You what?"

"I yield. I submit. You win. You like being in charge so much; you should like that."

"Hm."

The silence went on an uncomfortably long time. Finally, he leaned close enough she could feel his breath spilling down her throat, again. "I want something."

_Oh yeah, I sorta guessed. _"What?"

He seemed to be drinking in the scent of her neck. Not exactly unpleasant in the abstract, but disconcerting in the particular. "Play with me."

"What?"

"Play at being a Necromonger. Come with me today. Watch. Keep quiet. End of the day, tell me if it gives you any ideas on how to save the universe from me. If I let you."

"Stand by and shut up?"

"Just for play. And I want you to dress for the part."

"I don't know how to do that."

"I've got people." He was nuzzling her neck with his head, sending her heartbeat through the roof. If only she didn't hurt . . . if only he wasn't waiting for her, and she had any fucking idea what to do . . .

"Okay. You win. I'll do it. Just – just let me down."

With obvious reluctance, he released her arms and lowered her, gently, to the ground. "Go shower. I'll have someone there to help you pick an outfit." After a moment's hesitation, she fled.

* * *

By the time she finished showering, a demure woman was waiting. Riddick was nowhere to be seen. The woman curtsied, all grace. "Lady."

"Hello."

"I have selected some options for you, Lady," the woman offered, deferential but professional. Jack eyed them morbidly. All things Dame Vaako had picked for her. She hated clothes she couldn't fight in, even if, as she increasingly suspected, the only person she might be fighting could snap her neck with one hand. She fingered the soft cloth, having to grudgingly admit the clothes were beautiful.

She picked the simplest. A comparatively full skirt, a top with neckline lower cut far than she liked, but both cut loose enough that she could move. The woman helped her dress, did her hair, even applied make up. The shoes were still stupid.

"You look nice." Riddick was lounging in the door. How long had he been there? She blushed.

"Thanks," she said, shortly.

"Got something for you." He walked close with something metallic in his hands. He handed it to her, almost shyly.

It was a necklace. She dimly remembered the type was called a torc – a rigid, flat necklace, open in the front. It was heavy; strands of gold, silver, and something that could have been spun obsidian braided together. It almost looked like a snake. It had a hinge at the back. Did they usually? She ran her fingers over it. Had to be half a kilo of precious metals. Shockingly decadent.

"It's beautiful," she said. Damn it, her eyes were prickling with tears. "You shouldn't have." She handed it back to him, meaning to refuse the gift.

He took it. Brushed her hair back and put it around her throat. She was glad the bruises had finally faded. His hands were on her neck longer than they needed to be.

"I want everyone to know you're with me," he said, his voice far lower than usual.

"I'm going to need a bodyguard if I wear this."

"Won't be a problem." He took her arm and led her from the room.

* * *

The day was bewildering. Started with a meeting of the generals. Eight men and four women, discussing whether they could leave their latest conquest yet or needed to consolidate. There was a major target. She found it hard to listen to the words, focused on the people. Vaako was Riddick's man, through and through. The women all seemed to be on his side. The other seven . . . two she was certain were looking for their chance to kill him. Toal, especially. Three were probably with him. Two would back anyone on top.

Then a review of new hand weapons. Riddick seemed to like that. No one offered her one to try out.

Lunch was semi formal, with doctors discussing excitedly new ways to use injured soldiers. There were apparently a lot of them. Riddick seemed bored. Kept putting food on her plate, then eating it himself.

Another meeting. More people she was fairly sure wanted to kill him. Nervous looking religious leaders presenting a petition requesting that the Lord Marshal make his long delayed pilgrimage to the Threshold. She was fairly sure he wasn't listening.

Finally, he sent everyone out of the room. "Anything you wanna do?"

"I'd like to see Kyra."

So they went to visit Kyra. Riddick laid his hand against a panel; the door drew back. At her look, he elaborated. "After Dame Vaako brought you here, I changed the locks. I can open it, you can open it, and that's it."

They walked into the silent room.

It hurt, but not as much this time, she was glad to find. She gazed at Kyra for a long time, before becoming aware of Riddick. Watching her quietly.

She met his gaze, and for a moment, all of the anxiety about why she was there and what was going to happen fell away. In his own crazy way, he was, and always had been, family. She smiled at him, and touched his hand. "She looks like she could just wake up."

"Yeah. I had her fixed up."

"Why?"

He sighed, and looked sadder than she'd ever seen him. "They told me she was in the Underverse. I thought maybe I could go get her."

"What?"

He shrugged. "It was stupid. But . . . they were so sure she was still herself, there. Because she did convert. But when they found out I was thinking of bringing her back, the priests got really agitated."

"Agitated?"

Riddick put his hands in front of him, adopted a pinched look and a whiny voice that she'd never expected he had in his arsenal. "But Lord Marshal! The Underverse is the world of the eternal! If you bring someone out of the eternal into the field of time the results could be catastrophic! But Lord Marshal! She's in the realm of the infinite! You bring her back into the realm of the finite, the results could be catastrophic! Blah blah blah!"

He looked glum. "They seem to think the whole thing will fall apart if I bring her back. It'll 'vomit forth abomination,' they tell me. Rain down destruction."

She stared at him, wide eyed. "Sounds like your thing. So why don't you?"

He actually paused. Finally. "She's not you. And I'm not sure I believe people come back from the dead. Might be a problem for me if they did."

He paused, meditatively. "Plus, as soon as I go through, I bet some true believing _hero_ will torch her body. And since my men found you, it's less interesting."

"Why?"

He smiled, only slightly predatory. "Because then I didn't need to ask her where you were."

"But . . . don't you have to cross the Threshold to be the Lord Marshal?"

He shrugged. Covered her hand with his. Changed the subject. "Look, I work out with some of the guys now. You can come and watch, or. . . whatever."

"I can't join in?"

He gave her a strange look. "No. I don't want people to know you can fight."

That surprised her. "Why?"

"Puts you at risk. Plus . . . I like having you as a secret weapon." He started kneading her hand, gently.

"I think maybe I'll go back to our – your – rooms, if that's okay. I'm feeling a little . . . overwhelmed."

* * *

They hadn't gotten far before she stopped dead, recognition in her eyes. That surprised him. "Mark," she breathed.

_Who the hell is Mark?_ He followed her eyes to a young soldier guiding new recruits to the conversion chambers. He was looking back with similar recognition. _She knows Necros? Of course she knows Necros. We took New Mecca. _Strange he'd never thought of that before. Riddick waved the man over.

Mark collapsed on his knees before them. "My Lord Marshal," he intoned, voice reverent.

Riddick suppressed the urge to kick him in the head. "Stand up, son. You two know each other?"

"We were at school together, years ago," Jack said, something odd in her eyes. "I never thought of . . . that."

"There are many of us, my lady," the boy said as he scrambled to his feet. She flinched.

"Anyone I know?"

"Alas, I don't know who you knew, my lady. But there are probably some. Many chose to convert." His eyes were down. _Good god, _Riddick thought. _Are all my soldiers such pansies?_

"I'm still Jack. How are you?"

"Good, my lady – Jack. I have accepted the bliss of the Underverse, and I live to serve, 'till the Underverse comes."

Jack flinched again, and her eyes went to the line of converts and their escorts, politely paused, waiting for the solder to return. "I'll have to take your word for it, Mark."

"You have not seen?" His voice was rhapsodic, and for the first time since he came close, he looked her in the eye. "My lady, pure bliss awaits. There is a better world. We all serve the better world."

Riddick put his hand on Jack's shoulder. "You two'll have to catch up some time. Later. See ya around, sonny." The man bowed again, as Riddick almost yanked Jack away to his rooms. Their rooms.

He kissed her on the forehead as he left, and she blushed.

* * *

When he returned, hours later, he found her in the gym. Sweat had plastered her clothes to her body. She was doing one sequence over and over, fast. He watched for a while, unsure if she knew he was there. He'd have to work with her on that.

"Hey."

"Hey."

"Watcha doin'?"

"Something Kyra showed me once. Except I should have a knife."

"Slow it down. Lemme see."

She did, with exaggerated care. He grunted. "Okay, do it against me, half speed."

She tried. Her technique was perfect. He smiled, and was rewarded by a beautiful smile back.

"Okay, full speed and strength."

She tried. Her technique remained perfect. Still, he deflected the blow easily, caught her, and flipped her against the wall, effortlessly. She bounced up, looking unreasonably perturbed.

"It's a great move. Used it myself. But you can't do it."

"That's what Kyra said." Her voice was bitter.

He looked at her intensely, shook his head. "Not smart. You are never going to be strong enough. You need to focus on techniques that use your greater speed and agility, not brute force. And that's a brute force move."

She made a funny sound in her throat. Turned around so her back was to him. "I watched Kyra use it."

"What sort of weapon?"

"Dunno."

"Probably something special."

"Don't think so. Wish I could have mastered it."

"You have. Just don't use it. It'd be like trying to shiv someone with a brick. Better ways to use the brick."

Her shoulders quivered.

"What's wrong, kid?"

"That's why she left me."

He stayed quiet.

"When I couldn't – she said I was useless, and I'd just get – I'd just be in the way. So she took me back to Abu." She went silent.

_There's more. _"Tell me," he said, softly.

She sighed. "Really don't want to."

He looked at her, hard. _Kyra abandoned Jack because she couldn't learn an impossible move? _

_And there's something worse than that she doesn't want to tell me? _

She looked away, started running through the routine, again, grimly. Changed the subject abruptly. "I kept that knife you gave me. Wore it always. A little bit of you. I thought about you. Those men --" she broke off, stopped moving. Then she started again, with a grim deliberateness. "Kyra even retrieved it for me. She _understood _why I wanted it. I'm surprised your boys didn't bring it here, since they brought everything else, including my socks. I sorta miss it."

He didn't say anything.

She stopped and faced him. "You locked up all the weapons in your room. Why? You afraid I'll use them?"

"Yes."

"Afraid of me, big guy?"

He gave her a blank look. "What?"

She made an exaggerated sigh. "Are you even listening to me? Why did you lock your shivs up? You love those things."

"Because," he said, slowly and deliberately, "they told me you attempted suicide when you saw my face. I am not making it easy for you to check out."

She started at him, open mouthed. "Oh."

They didn't talk much before bed that night. He didn't press her to report her insights from her first day among the Necromongers, and she did not volunteer.

* * *

She was dancing, spinning, whirling around a tree that stretched triumphantly into the sky, in the middle of a sun drenched clearing in a boundless forest, with dozens of other people, all ecstatically whirling, spinning, dancing, together, the happiest she had ever been. And she knew, somehow, that these were the brothers and sisters and cousins and friends she had never known, who she would have known, if only, if only . . .

She closed her mind to the onlys, and threw herself into the dance. She was the tree around which everything whirled, and she was the world, whirling, and she was the moon, whirling around the world and whirling on its own axis, and she was the all the worlds whirling around a sun that was also whirling, and she was a galaxy that was whirling, and she was the center of the galaxy, of the universe, and everything was whirling around her, and she was drowning in the pure joy of the whirling dance.

Then she was back in her body, dancing with a man, blond and lean, all fire and light, and he was the world too, and the sun. He spun her around and caught her in his arms, and she was happy in a different way. She'd been dancing for an eternity, it was night, but her world was illuminated by the love in his eyes.

He spun her into the tree at the center of the dance and they were kissing, nuzzling, at the center of everything. "This is what it should be," he whispered. "This is what it could be again. If you do your part."

She laughed, not understanding, just wanting to be there forever, drunk with joy.

Then every thing stopped.

Something was falling, flaming out of the ethereal sky. The man grabbed her hand and they fled through the forest.

The heat of the thing was already licking the land. Trees were exploding into flames around them. Then there was a roar of a thousand oceans, and the tree was gone, destroyed in the impact of a comet, and then the forest was gone, and they were running over a dead landscape.

He fell, letting go of her hand. She tried to pull him up and he shook his head, violently. "Run. Someone has to save us."

"I don't know how," she cried. Collapsed beside him, trying to make him get up.

"Ask her," he whispered. "Ask the air."

Then a fireball screeched out of the impact crater. He threw himself on top of her, and then he was dead, dissolved into the flames. Everyone near her was dead, and the only living things were far away.

Jack dreamed that dream again and again, and it always ended the same.


	7. Sipping Under the Waves

Riddick seemed to assume she'd go with him the next day; seemed to assume she'd let herself be dressed up in a new outfit as well. Exhausted from a dream that never ended right, she couldn't think of a good reason to tell him no. He seemed content to have her near by. She lost track of the meetings, the details, the numbing numbers of the slain.

But the next day was better, and the day after that too. She was falling into the rhythm of it all, and the strange dream and the inexplicable guilt it left her with did not return.

On the following day, routine was disrupted by a surprised looking tech announcing that a ship was requesting permission to dock. A "diplomatic mission."

No one sends diplomatic missions to the Necromongers, apparently. To the discontent of some of the generals, Riddick decided to receive them.

Jack shuddered as the court swept into the room where Kyra had died. She might even have fled had Riddick not kept a tight grip on her elbow. He marched grimly up the dais to an ornately carved throne between two pillars.

There was no place for her. For a moment she thought he was going to make her sit on the floor between his legs. But a courtier produced a low cushioned bench and set it in slightly front of the throne, almost like a footrest. He bowed Jack to it, and she sat, self consciously. Riddick literally could put his feet in her lap if he wanted. She tried hard not to think about what Dame Vaako said about sitting at Riddick's feet. She tried hard not to finger the necklace he'd given her. He would almost ritually take it off of her after the public part of his day had ended, and put it back on before they left in the morning, and she still hadn't managed the catch herself.

The diplomatic mission, if that what it was, entered the room, led by a woman. It included many men, in chains.

The woman was magnificent. Her skin was rich and dark; her hair a cascade of black ringlets, her arms muscular, her bearing that of a queen. She had a gun holster hanging from a gun belt, almost teasingly empty. She bowed deeply to the throne. Jack dimly heard her announced as Princess Pentheselia, heir to Illium.

Illium. Big empire. Named for a semi-mythical earth civilization, the mythic ancestors of Rome. The one they were thinking of attacking? What else did she know about Illium?

"You here to surrender?" Riddick asked, sardonically, disrupting her thoughts.

The woman smiled, a smile like the rising of a thousand suns. Her voice was rich and seductive. She was charisma walking. "First, a gift." She gestured at the men in chains. "The senior officers of the garrison you conquered four days ago. They fled to us. We have refused them sanctuary. They are yours by right of conquest."

He barely glanced at the men. Made a gesture and they were taken from the room.

"You came to give me prisoners?"

"I am here to give you an alliance. My father controls an armada of fifty thousand ships. Almost as large as yours. We are willing to make your war our war. We are willing to unite our forces."

Riddick shifted. Jack was intensely conscious of his leg brushing against her back. "An alliance."

"Yes."

"You were allied to those men. How do I know you won't turn on me the way you turned on them?"

Her smile was intoxicating. "First, because the casualties would be enormous. We have run projections that indicate up to 80% casualties on each side, leaving us both vulnerable. But together, we will be invulnerable."

"So surrender. I can be merciful." He started to stroke Jack's hair, softly, affectionately. Pentheselia's eyes followed his hands, with seeming fascination.

She then shook her head. "Second, because we will seal our alliance with our marriage. My father will give you our armada as a dowry. When he dies, you will inherit our Empire with me, and our children after us."

"Hmmm." Riddick gazed at her, speculatively. His hand was now toying with Jack's neck, sending electric shivers down her spine.

"Clear the room," he ordered. When Jack stood up to follow the crowd, steel fingers closed on her upper arm. "Not you," he growled, low. "Never you." She sat back down, uncertainly. His hand resumed its caress of her neck and hair. Why was he being so overtly affectionate now?

_Because I'm a prop, _she realized. _He's using me to test other people's reactions. And to give himself something to do when he's bored._ The thought nettled her. She sat stiffly, trying to distract herself from his hands by mastering all she knew about Illium.

After the room emptied, the woman smiled down on her, warm and friendly. Even knowing that such women were bred to be charismatic, Jack felt warmed. "You must be the little girl the Riddick saved from monsters."

His fingers paused. Tightened. Then continued, slower.

Pentheselia looked up at him with another dazzling smile. "Don't worry. You can keep her. It's good she's here. Proves you have the capacity to be a good man. Just give me a child to inherit our joint thrones. Your little girl can even join in our . . . consummation. I am not a jealous woman."

He was silent, still speculative. She wanted to turn around; see what he was thinking, but couldn't figure out a way to do it that wouldn't make her seem . . . worried about what he would do. Didn't want to look worried. What did she care if he married?

Pentheselia smiled down at Jack, still open and friendly. She knew that smile.

_I went to school with her sister. _

A little sister who had been utterly besotted with her big older sister, and talked about her all the time, even though she never said where she was from. _Heh. I do know things. _

"What do you think, child? Would you mind if I married him? I promise not to take him away from you for long at a time . . . "

Jack gazed up at her with her best innocent wide eyes, trying to remember everything. She looked back at Riddick, as if asking permission. He shrugged. She decided she was tired of being a prop. "I think you are married already."

Did a flash of worry pass over the woman's perfect features? If it had, it was gone in an instant. "A technicality. If the Lord Marshal accepts my offer, it will be annulled."

"I think you love your husband very much."

The woman shrugged. "I think the Lord Marshal loves you very much, pet. For people like us, these things can be managed. I will have my man sterilized. I presume you already have been."

Jack ignored her attempt to switch the focus; tried to ignore the fingers that had just tightened again. "I think you are a warrior to the blood and bone."

The woman went very still, her complete attention on Jack. She was a lot like Riddick; what Riddick could have been if he'd been raised to serve instead of cast out into the outer darkness. It made Jack feel queer, trapped between the two of them. She took a deep breath.

"And I think you know that these guys don't do succession by primogeniture. They do it by conquest. I think you'll try to use that to take them down, by taking him down."

Jack shrugged. "It's a good plan. Heroic. But it won't work. The best you could hope for is to win. Then the Necroverse turn you into its monster, the way it's turning him. Even if you don't believe. At worst you'd both be dead, and someone who truly believes in extinguishing all sentient life in the galaxy would be back on that throne."

Both of them were silent. She could feel their eyes upon her. Two of the most powerful people in the galaxy, listening to her. How the hell had this happened?

Pentheselia's eyes locked on Jack's, and for a moment, there was no one else in the universe. "Pretend you are my counselor. What do you suggest? How can my people survive what's to come? How can we win?"

_Lot of pretending going on here . . . _"I don't think you can win. When your soldiers fall to the Necroverse, most will convert. Then you are fighting your own. You might both have 80% casualty rates, but your fallen will become his soldiers. And they know how you fight.

"But you might be able to survive. Conditional surrender. Negotiate for an orthoprax dispensation – voluntary conversions only until some date in the future. Settle for your military converting en mass. The civilian population isn't as interesting to them. Maybe get them to promise only voluntary civilian conversions until the rest of the universe has been converted. That might never happen, after all. Marry or not, I don't care, but demand generalship over your armies too. Then you can protect your people from the inside."

_I can't believe I just said that, _Jack thought, a little shocked at herself. She was not entirely sorry that Riddick was gripping her shoulder, pressing her lightly against his leg. Comforting.

Princess Pentheselia's eyes were thoughtful. She was quiet for a long time, and when she finally spoke again, there was a note of respect in her voice, and the dazzling, seductive smile, was gone.

"My apologies. I underestimated you. You give good counsel."

Involuntarily, Jack smiled. She could like this woman, even though she knew, intellectually, that she had been bred for thousands of years to be likable, to lead men willingly to their deaths. Still, Jack was pathetically grateful for the compliment. "Thanks." Their eyes met.

"They haven't made you convert."

"Well, you know how people indulge their pets."

Pentheselia laughed, an authentic, wholesome sounding laugh. She looked back up at Riddick. "Cute kid. Well done, finding her before we did."

Riddick's fingers tightened again, this time hard. She tried not to flinch. Pentheselia's eyes were on his fingers.

You're hurting her," the princess said, finally.

To Jack's surprise, his fingers eased, and he stroked her bare skin of her too-revealing clothes, almost apologetically. "You were looking for her?"

"Everyone was. An infamous killer ascends to the throne of the Necromongers? That presented an opportunity. We looked for your weak spots. Every one did. She was the biggest. The one girl in all the universe that seemed to mean something to you.

"That woman you took out of Crematoria had us fooled for a while. Fortunately, my people triple check everything. And she was not exactly unknown in her own right."

"Hm."

"Ally with me, and you'll have access to our intelligence data."

There was silence in the room again.

"What would you have done if you found her . . . before I did?"

"She would have been well treated."

Jack snorted. Right. At best, they would have turned her into a living weapon.

_A living weapon . . . _

"Interesting offer. I'll think about it." He stood, and the room filled with courtiers and soldiers. "Escort the princess to a suitable . . . chamber. Something comfortable." he ordered. She bowed, and he nodded back in acknowledgment.

_They'd be a beautiful couple, _Jack thought, almost wistfully. She could see them leading celestial armies into an Armageddon sky.

*

Riddick took Jack back up the same spiral staircase he'd carried her up just weeks before. As soon as the door was shut he had her pressed against it, face too close to hers, his hands on her shoulders.

"You're not my pet."

She was nettled again. Didn't she deserve more than that? She'd just saved him from bigamy with an assassin. _Yeah, right, gratitude_.

"Oh, come on, Riddick. I sleep in your bed, you exercise and feed me every day, and now you're taking me for walks. I don't have a job except for being available to you. When I'm not where you want me, you just pick me up and move me. It's absolutely clear I can't leave this ship; I even can't leave your rooms without you or an armed escort. Since everyone's scared shitless of you, pretty sure it's not for my protection. I'm not even your mistress, despite what everyone is going to think after seeing your hands all over me the last few days. I'm your pet."

He shook his head. "Jack."

"What?"

"You're not a pet. Like I told you, tell me what you want to do, and I'll try to make it happen. You haven't said anything. I figured you're still working on it."

She shook her head. "So what, you'll set me up with some sort of arts and crafts project? I don't want to help you guys destroy the universe."

He shrugged. "Whatever. Suit yourself. But you're not just a pet." His voice dropped low, meaningful, even . . .vulnerable. "You're family. You're all the family I've ever let myself have. That lady's right. I've loved you for years."

She swallowed at that. Kept her answer light. "I love you too, big guy. That's why I put up with it. Why I haven't jumped out an airlock. Pets do love back."

_As opposed to living weapons . . . _"Hey, you should have the princess scanned at a cellular level. She could be carrying a bomb. She could be a bomb."

"Don't change the subject."

"I'm not. It's just . . . the Illium are _good _with bio-weapons."

"Hm." He hesitated. Spoke into his wrist unit. "Vaako. Have the princess scanned at a cell deep for anything that could be used as a weapon."

He waited for the acknowledgement without moving. Once it came, he shut off the communicator and his full attention was back on Jack.

"You. Are. Not. A. Pet."

"Whatever. Can I go now?"

Something dark and terrible shadowed his face for an instant. He exhaled slowly, and it was gone. But he did not let her go. "Kid, you were so terrified when you got here. I handled it badly. I . . . I've been trying to take things slow. It doesn't mean you are my pet."

She looked down, feeling extraordinarily awkward, wanting the conversation over. But the silence stretched on too long. "Take what slow?"

He lifted her face gently in his hands and smiled down at her in a way that made her insides cramp. Shook his head slowly. Now he changed the subject. "So how did you know all that about her?"

She took a ragged breath. "Knew her sister. She was at that school with me."

He threw back his head and laughed. And then, at last, he kissed her, and her world came to a stop.

*

He hadn't meant to kiss her. Not yet.

But he was so delighted with her. She could fight, she could think, and unlike the other two women he'd felt something for in the past decade, she'd stayed alive more than a few hours after they'd met. And also unlike them, she hadn't died saving his life. Maybe that wasn't love snatched from the teeth of destiny, but it was more than he'd had before.

The universe shrank to their lips and hands and skin and there was nothing but pure rapture in that universe.

After an eternity he came back to himself and, for a moment, backed off of her. It was only supposed to be for a moment.

"She's really got you worked up," Jack managed.

His felt his features harden. Did she think this was about someone else?

He was trying to take it slow. He was guiltily aware that giving in to the growing urge to fuck her would be a little like rape, because he had all of the power here. She could only say no if he let her say no. And he had only the vaguest idea of how much the mercs had fucked her up when it came to sex. Had a feeling it was a lot.

He had hoped several times she was about to make the first move. Relieve him of moral accountability. But he'd been wrong every time.

He'd even begun to wonder whether there was something wrong with her, how she let him touch her, how she let him take her to bed, without protest, without overt response. Didn't reciprocate, didn't push him away. It was almost becoming a game; seeing how far he could go before something snapped one way or another.

_But maybe passive resistance is the only resistance she thinks she has. _The thought made him unaccustomedly itchy.

_She's right, you know. You are worked up about that woman. About the fact she might have gotten to Jack first._

_And you're worked up about the fact you are keeping the person you care the most about; the one woman in the galaxy who feels like she's the same species as you as a pet, and she knows it. You didn't want her to know that._

He had the feeling he'd just figured out something important, but he didn't feel inclined to untangle it that instant_. _"Do we have to talk about this now, Jacky?" he finally growled, quietly, one hand moving softly over her breast, delighting in it, the other stroking the back of her neck. Moral niceties be damned. Since when did being powerful mean you didn't get to fuck the girl you were falling in love with?

Her eyes closed, and the smell of her response washed over him. He could drown himself that response. Then her lips opened slightly and they were kissing again, and his hands were under her clothes, and the waves were closing over his head.

*

Something chirped, insistently. Jack was pulling away from him, her face flushed and clothes messed. She was breathing heavily.

"Your, uh, thing--" She gestured towards his wrist. He frowned. Communicator. On the wrist. Right. He thumbed it on, irritated that he had to take his hands off of her to do so. "What."

"You were right, sire. She has an explosive element laced through her body. Enough to blow a hole in the hull of the Necropolis."

_Damn. I liked her. _"What's the trigger?"

"We don't know, sire. We're still working on it. We're moving her to a shuttle."

"Time, sex, death, or knowledge." Jack murmured.

Riddick looked at her, distracted. "What?"

"Triggers. I'm guessing. I bet she doesn't know."

"Why?"

"They've got to know you have telepaths. They do too. So either they don't tell her, or she consents, then has the knowledge removed from her brain . . . "

Riddick turned off the communicator. It shut down with a decisive click. "How do you know so damn much?"

She shrugged. "Couple of years at one of the schools dedicated to training the Leaders of Tomorrow. Gave me some idea of how they think."

"Can it be disarmed?"

"How would I know?"

He flipped the communicator back on. "Vaako. Don't let her know we know. That might be a trigger. Try . . . try to figure out if we can disarm it. Or if we can control the trigger. Also, check out the rest of the people in the mission, including the prisoners."

"Yes, sire."

He shut off the connection and deliberately removed the communicator from his wrist. Tossed it aside. Jack followed it with her eyes, swallowed. He could hear her heart beat; smell her hormonal spike. Smell her sudden fear. Realized that removing the communicator was a little like getting undressed.

_She's still afraid. Is that a problem for me? _

_Yeah, maybe. More afraid she is, the more this _is_ going to be like rape._

He cupped her face in his hands tenderly, made her look at him. "Jack . . ."

"What?"

"Don't be afraid."

"I'm not . . ."

"Liar."

She punched him, lightly. "Kidnapper."

He caught her wrist, gently, kissed her palm. "Time honored way to get a mate."

Did she shiver? She came back fast enough.

"Killer." She punched him with her other hand, harder.

He had that hand too. Kissed it lovingly, then yanked both behind her back, trapping her close. Breathed down her neck: "Innocent."

She tried to pull away. "Brute."

He growled, nipped at her neck, playfully. Started kissing her again, harder, more insistent. Hands more insistent, exploring new places. She was responding, her lips and small hands becoming bolder. He was slipping under the waves, losing himself in her.


	8. Reaching Accommodations

The communicator beeped again, insistently. Damn, he forgot about the override. She was pulling away. With great reluctance, he let her go.

He retrieved the communicator, not excited about it. "What?"

"Sire, you were right. They all had the element laced through them. We almost sent the prisoners through the conversion process before we determined that. Sire, they would have destroyed the conversion chambers and punched holes in the containment fields. It would have been catastrophic."

"Damn."

"We're taking them away from the city, going to try to disarm them."

"Good. Well done. And Vaako?"

"Sire?"

"No more interruptions. You're in charge."

Vaako's voice dropped, reverent. "Yes Sire." He switched off the communicator. Thought about breaking it. Then he came aware of Jack. Jack, stricken, was backing away from him. "Shit, shit, shit."

_Fuck, what now? _"Jackie . . ."

"I'm an idiot."

He advanced on her slowly. "Jackie . . ."

"Don't you see? I'm an idiot. Should have kept my fucking mouth shut."

Her words were not making any sense to him. "You did good. Probably saved lives."

"No I didn't! They would have! Their deaths might have saved billions!"

It finally slid into place. She was horrified at herself for helping the Necromongers. _For helping me_.

He ran his hands over his head, trying to regain composure. "Jack . . ."

She collapsed to the ground, hugging her knees close to her chest. The face she turned up to him was already tear streaked.

He crouched beside her and awkwardly patted her back. "Jackie. It's okay."

She shook her head, violently, talking so fast he could barely understand her. "You don't get it, do you? I thought they were just trying to kill you. Stupid plan. I love -- I don't want you dead. I even get why you are in charge. I get your reasons. But Necromongers are evil. That plan could have worked. They would have punched holes in the Necropolis, probably attacked while you were disoriented. Might even have brought it all down. And I fucked it up. Because I was showing off. Because I wanted to impress you. Because I . . ." Her voice trailed off, miserably. She was beginning to cry, quiet, keening, miserable cries.

He rocked back. "You could have died too."

She stopped crying. Her voice was low and intense. "You think I wouldn't die to stop the Necroverse?"

_Not acceptable. _He stood up. His voice was flat. "Go wash your face."

She looked up at him, not comprehending.

"Wash it. Or I will."

She took a deep ragged breath, and fled to the bathroom. He stared after her. Retrieved his communicator. "Vaako."

"Sire?"

"I think we might be attacked. I think the mission might have been a Trojan Horse. Get us prepared. I'll be there soon, but you're in charge. Do what you think needs to be done."

"Yes, Sire," Vaako's still-reverent voice replied. A few details led to a few more. Finally, he flipped off the communicator. Went after Jack.

* * *

She'd locked the bathroom, unaware, perhaps, that no lock in the Necropolis would stay sealed against him. She jumped when he walked in.

She'd washed her face already, removing every trace of the makeup. Her face was puffy. But she wasn't crying. He was glad of that. She was strangely calm.

He lifted her on the high bathroom counter. She made a furtive gesture with her right hand and before he realized what he was doing, he had her wrist. She had a forgotten straight razor in her small hand.

"Whatcha doing with this, Jack?"

She wouldn't look at him. Didn't answer.

_Was she going to slit her own throat? Try to slit mine? _

He took it from her.

"I'm going to give you a choice, Jack."

She looked up at him. The distress in her face nearly broke his heart.

He kept his voice flat. "You can spend the next few days in the med deck in restraints, 'til you're over this. Or you can come with me, and promise not to hurt yourself."

She looked down miserably. "Please don't tie me up. I can't stand that again. I'll go with you."

"Good girl." He was so close to her she was almost straddling him. If only she was. Fighting the urge to fuck her senseless, he settled for wrapping his arms around her and hugging her hard. She hugged back, desperately, as if she was drowning and he was the only buoyant thing in the waters.

* * *

He took her to the command center. Vaako vacated the center seat with alacrity. He gripped the man's arm, warmly, and was surprised at the warmth of his return grasp.

"What we got?"

There was worship in the man's eyes. "A fleet of ten thousand ships on an intercept course. Heavily shielded; we might not have seen them if we had not looked for them specifically. Our fighters are in formation. We will be victorious. Thanks to you."

Riddick jerked his head toward Jack. "Thank her. She figured it out. What do you recommend, Vaako?"

Vaako looked at Jack, blinked a few times. "We have a good position. So we wait until they are in range. Make them engage on our terms."

He nodded. "Sounds good."

He'd let Jack go when he gripped Vaako's arm. She'd eased her way back to a wall. He gave her a warning look. She nodded, briefly. Everything became quiet.

"Sir," one of the tech's voice called out, wondering. "We're being hailed by the flagship."

"Everyone wants to _talk _to me today," Riddick growled. "What the fuck is up with that?

The tech continued, "Sire, they are rebroadcasting this to their fleet."

Riddick glanced at Jack who said, miserably, "Probably propaganda. They are going to accuse you of slaughtering a peace mission." He nodded. He gestured to the tech, and, for perhaps the first time, a non-Necromonger appeared on the main screen.

The man's eyes were burning with the fire of a true believer. "You killed my wife! She came to sue for peace, and you killed her!"

Riddick scowled at the picture. And then started to laugh. "Pentheselia is your wife?"

"Yes! I am Duke Cecile Tardis, the righteous hammer of the gods and you will be destroyed!"

Riddick laughed, only partially at the man's name. "She's not dead, Cecile."

Real shock passed over the man's face. "What?"

"Yeah. Damndest thing. Seems she's . . . _infected _with some sort of explosive agent. They all were. The whole _diplomatic mission _that came to offer an alliance. Including the prisoners. Hey, send over the offer she made wouldya?" A tech scrambled to comply.

Her voice came, ghostly over the channel, rebroadcast to the Illium fleet by the Illium flagship. "I am here to give you an alliance. My father controls an armada of fifty thousand ships. Almost as large as yours. We are willing to make your war our war. We are willing to unite our forces."

Riddick lounged back in the chair, actually enjoying this, thanks to Jack. "So we've moved all of them a safe distance away. Got 'em all in a heavy stasis field. Hopefully, we can keep them all alive."

The man's face reappeared on the screen, stricken. "A trick."

"Been thinkin' it might be. But I'm a trusting soul, so I'm still considering her offer."

The man was shocked speechless. Riddick leaned forward, intimately.

"So you know how to fix her up? Hate to have her die of this. Kinda like her." He paused, thoughtfully, drawing the silence out.

"You got authority to negotiate, brother?"

The man cut the signal.

There was more silence.

The signal was back. Riddick nodded, and the man's face appeared on the screen, still stricken. "Limited authority. Are you offering terms?"

"Sure. You surrender right now. You and your army join us. You help me fix her, and you two live happily ever after. You can both be generals in my army. You refuse, we kill you all. Except her, maybe."

The silence was back. Finally, the man said, "I accept your terms."

_Huh. That was easy. _"Good. You and your command crew come over in a shuttle. Unarmed." The connection was severed.

Jack was staring at the floor. Came aware of feet in front of her. Looked up into a man's face, Vaako's face, his eyes shining with something like adoration. "Hail, lady."

"What?"

He grasped her passive hands, wonderingly, sank down on one knee. "You made this possible. A total victory, without firing a shot. Because you had the brilliance to see through their plan." He kissed her hands reverently.

Felt ungracious to pull away, but his adoration was multiplying her misery. And the reverent murmurs spreading through the room were like tiny cuts. She managed to smile down on him. He pressed her hands to his forehead, and stood up.

He towered over her. He gripped her arm, gently. "If I can ever do anything for you, lady . . ." He saluted, and was gone.

Everyone saw it. Even Riddick, who had one of his half smiles on his face.

She found herself morbidly eyeing a soldier's gun, in a holster, unsecured. He was busy at a console. Kyra had made her practice taking weapons out of other people's holsters until the move was smooth. _I could grab that. Bullet in the brain pan . . . _unconsciously,she started to ease towards him.

Riddick's hand closed hard on her shoulder. She hadn't seen him move. Breathed into her ear. "Don't. You. Dare."

The words ripped down to her core. _Don't you cry for Johns. Don't you dare . . . _She blinked back new tears.

"I don't feel so good."

He scowled at her. Looked around. Eyes fell on a man. "Nirgal."

"My lord?"

Jack followed the voice. Swallowed. She recognized that man. She'd pulled out of his grip once. Only once. She could feel, again, the relentless grip of those hands on her neck, around her waist, pinning her, trapping her, bruising her. She shot a pleading look at Riddick. His eyes were completely unreadable. Did he know this man's hands had been on her before? Was he punishing her by putting her back in the hands of a man . . . of a man . . .

_Of a man who kept you from committing suicide, _a rational voice cut through. _Yeah. He knows that. _

_God, he must think I'm a piece of work. No wonder he's been so fucking slow and careful. Afraid I'd melt down. Like I'm doing now. _Her eyes prickled hot again, ashamed.

Riddick's low growl cut through. "Take her to the med deck, have 'em check her out. And Nirgal – make sure she _stays safe._"

**

* * *

  
**

After a thorough exam by a doctor who kept giving her strangely intimate looks, they led her through a large empty section of the med deck to a comfortable room, and left her there. There was a bed big enough for two, two chairs, and a sink. Otherwise, the room was empty.

Nirgal had stayed with her the whole time. Became an almost comforting presence. Not a talker.

At last, she laid down on the bed and closed her eyes, fully clothed. Couldn't even figure out how to get the necklace off, and wasn't about to ask for help.

She'd lost track of time, but it felt very late. Nirgal had thoughtfully dimmed the lights, and she drifted in out of fitful dreams of floating in warm and dark waters under a blood red moon. Riddick and the Necroverse felt very far away.

After a long time, her drifting dreams were wrecked by a soft rap on the door. Tier, the telepath she had met back in Arden, slid in, gripping Nirgal's arm in an affectionate way as he passed.

"The Lord Marshal sent me. Nirgal, can you wait outside?"

Nirgal made eye contact with Jack, spoke for the first time. "Shout if you need me." He left, quietly.

Tier smiled at her again. "Thought you might like someone to talk to."

"Not really."

He sat on one of the soft chairs. "Ma'am, before I was a Necromonger, I was a counselor. I can help you if you let me."

She took a deep breath, despite herself. "Help me with what?"

He looked down for a moment, as if embarrassed. "With the fact that one of the defining moments in your life was being kidnapped by brutal, heavily armed men and gang raped. With the fact you have been kidnapped by brutal, heavily armed men and have no choice about sharing a bed with one of them. And then there's your suicidal ideation."

She stared at him. _Am I that transparent? Oh, fuck. He was in my head. He must have told Riddick about . . . oh god, how much did he tell Riddick? _Riddick hadn't asked any questions about what had happened. Maybe he didn't need to. Maybe that's why he hadn't kissed her before today; maybe the thought of all those men inside of her had sickened him. Maybe he thought she'd be sickened.

After a long pause, she asked, carefully, "how are you going to help me with any of this?"

"I can try to help you . . . reach an accommodation with the hard facts of your new life."

After a long time, she admitted in a small voice, "I'm so scared."

"Jack, no sane person wouldn't be terrified. What you've been through --"

"Not about that! About you! The Necroverse wants to destroy all life in the universe. That's so wrong I can't get my head around it. And I'm in middle of it."

He looked at her steadily. "We'll talk about the Necroverse in a bit. I think you might not understand it. I was talking about something more personal. Riddick. You're afraid of him."

"No, I'm not."

"Jack, you reek of it. Before converted, I counseled many clients who were in abusive relationships. I recognize some of what's going on with you."

She stood up and started to pace. "Riddick's not abusive. He's never hurt me."

"You mean he hasn't hit you? I can believe that. But he had you taken. He has you isolated. He has complete control of you. Where you sleep. When you eat. If you eat. That kind of control _is_ a type of abuse. Even if he isn't taking it any further than that. And it easily could become very abusive."

It fell from her mouth before she could stop it. "You think I don't know that?"

"Just getting it into the open."

"So what's your solution?"

He sighed. "It may not be so simple. Everyone lives with constraints. Yours are a little more obvious right now.

"If you didn't hate the Necroverse, I'd say you need to get some power. Ask for responsibility. He obviously adores you; he'll give it to you. He'd give you almost anything. Get some space to do work you believe in."

_But he's given me that, _she realized, dimly. By giving her permission, almost an invitation, to try to bring it all down. _But I fucked it up tonight. _Her eyes were filling with tears.

Tier had to notice. "Since you hate the Necroverse . . ." He trailed off. His eyes were tender, compassionate. There was a long silence.

Finally, he sighed. "I know what needs to happen."

"What?"

He smiled at her, his eyes now burning with something like love. "Convert."


	9. Nirgal's Blood

It took a moment to process what he had just said. "What?"

"Jack, your problem is that you can't reconcile what is happening with your values. You love life. You want to protect the innocent. You love people. All good things. But you think you are in the beating heart of the enemies of life, helplessly watching while horrible things happen. As long as you cling to your old ideas of what life is, you will be miserable. But if you convert, you'll understand. We love life too. Eternal life."

"I'd rather die."

"I know you think that. But we are not going to let you die, Jack."

Without thinking, she kicked him, hard, and he dropped to the floor. She dove for the door, but it was locked. Absurdly, she was at the verge of screaming for Nirgal when Tier struggled to his feet, obviously no physical threat to her. Compassion was still burning in his eyes.

He kept his hands away from his body, made a placating gesture. "Jack. I'm not going to hurt you. I couldn't hurt you. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that. You're not ready to hear about it."

She gave him a nod, but kept in a fighting stance.

"Look, I'll go. I'm sorry."

She hesitated. Nodded. Stepped away from the door. He rapped on it softly, and Nirgal opened it.

Something passed between the two men as they changed places, but she didn't understand it. Tier touched Nirgal's face as he left.

_Great. So instead of being alone with the telepath I can beat up I'm alone with the ape I can't. _But Nirgal didn't make a single move toward her, didn't try to say anything. Just stood stoically by the door.

She laid back down on the bed and closed her eyes, trying to think things through. Kept thinking of something a literature professor said about women in old stories committing suicide because there was no other way to assert themselves . . . someone else saying it was all about power . . . She fell into a half sleep filled with images of collapsing towers and enormous birds screaming.

She must have slipped into a full sleep, because one of the birds landed too close, cocked its head at her mockingly. Folded its wings, and turned into Kyra. Her voice was compassionate, but there was derision in her eyes. "You had a chance to be relevant today. If you can't handle it, get out of my way."

"But you're dead."

"Not as long as you are alive." Kyra's eyes were intense, love and anger and something else warring together. "Be me. All you have to do."

"I'm not you. I can't be you."

"You will be." Then Kyra was kissing her, filling her with butterflies and fear and a weakness that almost sent her to her knees. "Just let it happen. Don't fight. I'll make it all alright. I'll make it all up to you. Everything I did." Her voice fell to a hypnotic murmur. "Everything I did was for our people. Even the worst thing I ever did . . ."

Kyra's voice trailed off as Jack was woken by a door opening. Tier, with a strange smile on his face and something in his hands.

A needle. "This will help you calm down."

A lie. She flung herself off the bed, made a dive for the door. But just like before, Nirgal yanked her out of the air. She tried to scream, but his thick hand was over her mouth, almost suffocating. She knew with a sick certainty that Tier was going to take her to the conversion chambers, to hang by the neck until she was nothing more than another one of them.

"Jack, Jack, it's okay, it's okay," he soothed. "It's better than this world. Much better. Just let it happen. Please don't fight. All those awful things that happened to you won't happen to anyone once the Underverse wins. Life is cherished. It's better."

Some of the words were familiar but she didn't have time to figure it out. Nirgal eased his hand off of her mouth, and she was babbling. "Whether or not you're right, I have to chose, don't I? And I'm going to refuse. You can't make me convert." She felt Nirgal stiffen; had a wild flash of hope he might not go along with this.

Tier sighed. "Jack, maybe that's why I'm here. I'm not strong enough to overwhelm wills for long, but I can for long enough. Once we're there, I'll make it easy for you. Just let it happen . . ."

Nirgal eased his grip slightly, looked down at her, concerned. She understood, abruptly. _He did this to Nirgal. And it's wearing off. _She managed to gasp, "Nirgal, please don't do this." The needle was against her neck, but she was moving too much for him to get a good shot. "Nirgal, don't let him. Riddick doesn't want this." Nirgal kept gazing down at her, puzzled.

But she lost her chance. Tier laid his hand on Nirgal's face, and his faint concern vanished. He shifted his grip, pinning her head tight, and she felt the needle go in deep. Then Tier was stroking her face, softly, lovingly, his voice soothing. "The Lord Marshal wants you alive, Jack. You grieve. You are suicidal. You're not ready to hear about the bliss of the Necroverse, but we'll show it to you. Nirgal understands." She felt her body betray her; relax deeply.

"Please – please --- let me go--" Her voice was slurred. Her vision was blurring. She would have fallen but for the big man gripping her.

"Shhhhhh," Tier soothed, "We're going to do what I promised to do. Take you to that better world." He leaned close, whispered into her ear, low enough that Nirgal could not hear. "And after the Lord Marshal sees you happy there, maybe he'll follow."

She tried, feebly, to pull away. Crumpled. Nirgal lifted her into his big arms, and she didn't even struggle.

They carried her through the deserted section of the med deck to deserted corridors of the darkened city. In her numbed state, she was beginning not to care. They didn't seem to be passing anyone. She kept slipping back into the dream of being tied to an altar; a masked figure looming above her, bloodied knife raised high.

Nirgal finally spoke. "You sure 'bout this?"

"Yes."

"Conversion has to be voluntary."

"It will be."

"What does the Lord Marshal think?"

"He's busy." Tier reached a soothing hand toward Nirgal, who easily evaded it. The big man shifted his grip on her, looked at her eyes. She tried to shake her head violently. Barely moved her head.

"I'm gonna talk to him." Nirgal turned on his heel and started to move, fast, down the hall, gripping her tightly.

There was a pop, and he crumpled. The two of them fell in an ungainly heap. Something was dripping into her eyes, down her face, down her back.

_Blood_. Nirgal's blood. She was sticky with it.

Tier crouched beside her. "Nirgal was a good soldier. His place in the better world is assured." He was untangling her from the dead man's limbs, gently. She managed to kick out feebly.

"The drugs are beginning to wear off already?" He settled her against a corridor wall, and did something to Nirgal. She tried to stand. Failed.

He came back, Nirgal's belt, slick with blood, in his hands. "I'm sorry about this," he said, gently. "I know how hard this is going to be for you. But it's necessary. I can't have you fighting me. I'm not strong enough to help you do what you have to do right now. I need you not to hurt yourself until I'm ready again. You'll understand soon."

He used the bloody belt to tie her wrists behind her back. Her eyes were stinging with Nirgal's blood, and she couldn't even rub them. In her drugged state, she was mostly just mildly annoyed, though a part of her was raging.

She could hear him dragging Nirgal away. Then he was back. Picked her up with a mild oath, slung her over his shoulder, and carried her, far slower than before, down the hall.

* * *

Pentheselia's husband wanted to meet before he converted. Riddick wasn't interested. But the man had just handed him ten thousand war ships. Probably best to make nice. Met him in a nice conference room. Even made sure there was tea.

The man liked to talk. After almost an hour, Riddick called the interview to a halt, said they'd revisit post conversion. The man was led away, politely under the circumstances.

"Sire?" a tech called, unsure, as he left the conference room.

"What?"

Strange. The man was afraid. "Sire, your . . . lady is not in the med deck any more." He indicated the screen.

A chill trickled down Riddick's spine. The tracking device embedded in the necklace showed Jack was moving through back corridors. _Running away?_

"Contact Tier and Nirgal."

"I have tried. There's no response."

"Send who ever's closest to intercept." He gathered some of the men in the room with his eyes. "You're with me."

* * *

"Halt!" A sound of men. Jack felt a stirring of hope. _Hope that Necros are going to rescue me from the Necroverse? _Had to be a new side effect of the drug; she was giggling.

"Any closer, and I will kill her."

There was something hard poking into her temple. She regarded the prospect of it being a gun with amusement. Dying. That would be just the perfect ending to the evening. Riddick would be so pissed.

But everything was so very still. They were surrounded by people who were very unhappy, and she felt an outpouring of compassion for them. She could feel Tier's muscles trembling; he was not built for this. She felt pity for him too. And mild annoyance. He'd killed Nirgal, who she liked, and tied her up, which she didn't, and was taking her some place she did not want to go. She couldn't remember where it was they were going.

She could also feel her own muscles, coming back to life. Senses giving her sensible data. Pain. Awareness of her precarious, unbalanced position.

Compassion met irritation. _What the hell. Worst case scenario, I'm dead. I can live with that. _She giggled again, the sound filling the room. Then she twisted back and to the side as hard as she could, while kicking at his kidneys as hard as she could.

Wasn't very hard, but it didn't have to be. He stumbled, and she fell. She heard a pop, felt something hot pass her, and merciful blackness took her.

* * *

By the time Riddick arrived, the action was over.

The scene was maddening. Jack, unconscious, bound, bloody. A tech was bandaging her. Jack was not running away. She'd been _taken_.

He told her she would be safe.

His vision fixed on Tier, the man he sent to help her. The man he sent. To the girl he told he would keep safe. The man was also covered with blood. _God, how much of that blood is hers? _They were arresting him.

_Fuck that._ In one move he had shoved Tier hard against a corridor wall, feet off the ground, at eye level. Didn't say anything.

Tier's eyes were calm, his voice earnest, pitched low for his ears. "I was doing this for the Necroverse, sire. The Lord Marshal's lady must believe in the better world beyond. She must be one of us. Or she'll fill you with doubt and she will take you to the dark places."

Riddick snapped his neck before he could say anything else. Didn't want to give anyone else any ideas.

Watched as Jack was carried away. Went back to check on the integration of the Illium strike force.

* * *

She woke up, dark and warm, in someone's arms.

"Riddick?"

"Yeah, kid?"

She snuggled back into him. "I didn't do a good job playing a Necromonger, did I?"

Silence. A low chuckle. "You suck at being a Necromonger."

"Thanks, Riddick."

He wrapped his arms around her tighter.

* * *

Morning came. Riddick pulled himself out of bed quietly, thinking to let Jack sleep. He started to dress.

"Riddick, did I get shot?"

_Guess she's awake, _he thought. He wasn't really ready for this. He glanced at the mirror, saw her eyes were on him, had to see the bare muscles in his back tensing. He kept his voice calm. "Grazed. You'll be fine. Need to take it easy for a bit."

"It doesn't hurt."

"It won't."

He continued getting dressed.

"So . . . now what?"

He sat down on the bed, dressed except for his shoes. "What would you like to do, Jack?"

He had never asked her that before. She took one of his hand in both of hers, held it close to her face. Kissed it. His eyes closed for a moment.

"What happened to Tier?"

"Dead."

"Nirgal?"

"Dead when we got there."

"He was a good guy. He died for me."

"Not the first."

She startled. She did know that, didn't she? Johns. Fry. The crews of the Crowley and the Choming. He'd killed so many people on the way to New Mecca to keep her safe. And then those men that Kyra killed; all those men who died because he thought Kyra was her.

But most did not die in front of her. He tried hard not to kill in front of her. Maybe she didn't know.

She didn't ask. "I'm the only girl in the 'verse who was saved from the Necroverse by Necromongers, aren't I?"

"Probably."

"Am I a problem for you?"

"Nope."

"Can I stay with you today?"

He took a deep, shuddering breath. "Depends. I was going to have some folks sit with you today, here. Rather have you with me." He hooked an arm around her, pulled her closer. "Folks think you are a hero. Is that okay?"

"What did I do?"

"Saved tens of thousands of lives by figuring out their plan." His voice dropped. "I don't wanna worry you're going to throw yourself from a parapet when someone says something."

She laughed, a little. "I'm . . . not going to do that. I'm sorry I freaked out yesterday. It was all just too much."

He pulled her even closer, wanting to believe that was true.

"What happened with the Illium?"

"The strike force switched sides. They're with us now. Turns out they liked their princess. They were real pissed off someone put a bomb in her."

"Is she dead?"

"No."

She was caressing his hand, softly. "Are you going to attack her empire?"

"Yes. Soon as we integrate their strike force. Might try the propaganda thing too. That was kinda fun."

Her hand stilled.

"Jack. It's what we do." He hesitated, then said, trying to make it better. "They aren't good people. It's not a happy place for most people. They do bad things."

"Good people will die. And people who have never had a chance to be happy or good."

"Yeah. Most better off dead. I'll make it fast."

She gripped his hand, hard, then started stroking it again. Hesitantly, "Is there anything I can do to help you?"

Her hands were driving him crazy. "Like what?"

"I know how they think better than you do."

"Yesterday, you were suicidal because you were so horrified about where you are and what I do. Today, you wanna help me?"

She took a deep breath. "Had a lot of time to think last night. And you're right; it's better if it's you. And Tier was right about one thing. I need a job. I can't just sit in your rooms, being your pet. It's making me crazy. Okay, you make me crazy too, and the whole thing . . . but there's only one game in town . . . maybe I can figure out something from the inside."

He kissed her softly on the cheek. "Okay. I'll figure out something for you to do. Just . . . don't talk about that sort of thing with anyone but me, okay kid?"

"Not a chance."


	10. He Who Saw Everything

He pulled away from her, regretfully. The temptation to finish what they'd started last night was strong. But the young doctor had been quite clear, even as she was trying to avoid words like "don't," and "no." Jack needed to avoid excitement and exertion for a while. She had lost a great deal of blood, and Tier had pumped her full of a drug cocktail that should have left her paralyzed and sedated for hours. A miracle her body had been able to resist it. A miracle the doctor was clearly interested in; their initial examination had not revealed she was anything but Terran standard.

Still, she seemed open to him in a way she hadn't since she'd come to the Necropolis. Since their confrontation in the gymnasium, something had been bothering him. He took her hand, started to stroke it. "Jack?"

"Yeah?"

"Kyra. Did something happen between you two?" This was incredibly awkward. "Did she . . . hurt you?"

She made a funny laugh. "Well, that was inevitable. She was trying to teach me to protect myself."

"Not what I meant."

She sighed, looked down, but she didn't pull away. "We had . . . problems. I didn't make a good impression. She wasn't ready to deal with a freaked out pregnant sixteen year old. I was . . . ricocheting between pathetically grateful, numb and hysterical. She tried . . . but she was just overwhelmed by it."

He was trying very hard. But his brain had shut down at 'pregnant.'

"You were pregnant?"

"I thought you knew that." Now she was pulling away.

He wouldn't let her. "No, I didn't know that. Why would I know that?"

"Because your doctors asked me a lot of questions about it, Riddick. I figured it was in the medical report."

He stared at her. He'd only read the first page; the thing that said she was a healthy woman approximately 21 years old. Something twisted inside. "Who got you pregnant?" _I'm going to kill the mother fucker. Kill him slowly._

"How the fuck would I know? One of those guys. The ones that Kyra killed."

_One of what guys – oh shit. _"From rape." His voice was flat.

She gave him one, strangled look, then her face shut down, and she looked away. "Yeah. Riddick, I've never – I've never willingly -- "

All sorts of things were slotting into place. _I never should have left you, _he thought, distantly. "Jack. I'm . . . sorry."

There was a very long pause. Then, finally, "not your fault. You didn't do it. I'm over it."

_But it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for me. _There was a long silence. Finally, he broke it. "Did you . . . have it?"

She didn't answer for a long time. "No. I didn't have her. She took her."

The statement made no sense. "Kyra aborted it?"

"No . . . I mean she _took_ it. Her. Out of me. Had her incubated."

_Incubated? That's illegal in most places; costs shitloads of cash everywhere. How does a girl with access to that kinda money end up in Cremetoria? _"Where is she?"

"Guess she's been adopted. I don't know where. I never met her."

"Was that what you wanted?"

She made a strange noise in her throat. "Riddick, Kyra's kinda like you. She made all the big decisions. It was probably the right thing to do. I wasn't thinking clearly at the time."

He stroked her hair, gently. "Do you . . . want us to try to find her? She is your family . . . " _Which makes her my family . . . Fuck, where's this coming from? I want to adopt the daughter of the man who raped Jack? _

She made a slightly exasperated sound. "Riddick, Necromongers kill children. If your people found her, they killed her already. It's . . . not okay, but it's not like we attached or anything. I don't even know her birthday."

_My men might have killed your daughter. _

She was right, of course. Necromongers killed children. He'd moderated the policy somewhat; allowing younger and younger people to convert, but he hadn't stopped it. Seemed merciful not to leave orphans.

But now, the revelation that her child – _her daughter -- _might have been one of those children killed so mercifully hurt in a completely new way.

A part of him wanted to fix this.

He needed to know if there were any more of these revelations coming. "Jack," he said, softly. "Is there anything else? Got any more family out there? Did Kyra do anything else to you?"

She looked shifty. "Kyra said she'd kick my ass if I told anyone."

"I'm not anyone."

"And promise you won't tell anyone?"

"Yes, kid," he whispered. _Who does she think I talk to, anyway? _

Finally, without looking at him, "she took one of my ovaries. When I confronted her about it, she said I was going to be the mother of a mighty race. Guess ours . . . was mighty, once. And then was wiped out, before I was born. Only a few people didn't die."

"What people?" But he was fairly sure he already knew.

"Kyra wouldn't tell me. Said knowing would put me at 'greater risk.' Said that the people who did it are still looking for survivors. There's some prophecy they are trying to defeat or something. She wouldn't say much."

_Furyan_. _Both of you. Like me. Kyra was trying to resurrect our dead people. _

_Was that why she was looking for me? _

_Or was it just about vengeance? I haven't dreamed of Shirah once since I killed Zhylaw. _

_Fuck. I killed Zhylaw to save Jack. Which was stupid. I should have just grabbed her and left. Did Kyra set that whole fuckin' thing up so she could get vengeance?_

_Did she set me up?_

_Did she set Jack up? _

The implications were dizzying.

Jack did come with him that day. But they didn't talk.

* * *

Things were low key and quiet between them the next few days. Finally, on the third night, after dinner, Riddick made a decision.

"Come on. Something I wanna do."

Jack shrugged and followed him. He took her to a part of his chambers she had barely explored, because all the doors were always locked. He opened one of those locked doors, and gestured her towards a black maw. She held back, uncertain.

"What's down there?"

"I'll show you. Come on." He took her reluctant hand and led her down and down a spiral staircase. The light faded fast.

After an eternity, they reached the last step, entered a long curved tunnel. It sloped downwards. Jack, for whatever reason didn't complain about the near total lack of light. But she did walk slowly, one hand in his, the other trailing the wall. "It feels like rock."

"Yeah."

"Why is there rock on a space ship?"

"They scooped the city down to the bedrock."

Jack didn't say anything for a long time. Just seemed to be concentrating on her descent in what was, now, pitch darkness.

"We have to crawl through this next part. You first. Go slow." He took her hand, ran it over the low mouth of a tunnel.

She made a face, but did not complain. Just felt again for the ceiling and walls before gingerly lowering herself to the tunnel's sandy floor. Then she looked back, trying to sense where he was. "Can you see me?"

_Can I see you? You blaze like a sun in the darkness. I am drunk off of the smell of the blood in your veins. You are the only thing in the universe I would mourn if it all spiraled into the abyss. _

The strength of his response shocked him. _Holy shit, I'm completely falling for her. _

_You fell for her a long time ago, asshole_.

"I can see everything."

She started moving forward, slowly, on all fours. "You're Gilgamesh."

"What?"

"Gilgamesh. He Who Saw Everything. An old book, maybe the first book, about an ancient king. That was the subtitle in Sumerian. He who Saw Everything. I took a class once. Kyra thought it was important."

_What the fuck was Kyra doing to this kid? I've heard of grooming before, but this is getting weird. _

_Kyra_. There was a part of him that wished, really wished, Kyra had been Jack all grown up, and was still alive. Or at least was still alive . . . that he was falling in love with her instead of this girl he'd known as a child . . .

Then something else hit him. _Huh. Shirah told me I can see everything. Like Gilgamesh. Did she mean I was supposed to be a king? That she thought this was supposed to happen? Was she . . . setting me up? Just like her? _

Jack kept talking, slowly, as if to distract herself from the darkness. "Gilgamesh was part god. And a bad king, because he didn't care about his people. He used to rape — he used to do bad things. The people prayed, and the gods sent him a companion, Enkidu, who was part animal. They became best friends. Some say lovers. They became human together."

Her voice trailed off. He was curious, if only because she was actually talking without seeming to agonize over every word. "What happened?"

"Lots of things. They fought each other; they fought together against others, they fought the wind. Finally, they pissed off the Queen of Heaven, Ishtar. She sent a monster to kill Enkidu. When he died, it broke Gilgamesh's heart. He went on a quest to defeat death."

Riddick snorted. _Weird. Never thought about other people going into the underworld to retrieve the people they . . ._ He couldn't finish the thought."Did he win?"

"No. He almost did."

She seemed to be concentrating on the journey. After a long time, she offered, quietly, "but he came back to be a good king."

The tunnel curved gently downwards in a widening spiral. After a very long time, it opened into mammoth cavern. There was a considerable distance from the mouth of the tunnel to the floor.

"Wait. There's a drop. Don't want you to fall. Lemme past." Riddick squeezed past her in the tunnel, enjoyed it more than he probably should have, dropped down into the open space far below. Turned to watch her.

Blinking blindly she found the edge with her hands. "What do I do?"

"Just fall. I'll catch you." After only the briefest of hesitations, she dropped into the darkness. He caught her easily.

He set her down slower than he had to, grasped her hand again and led her through the maze of columns that seemed to reach up into infinity. Tiny bits of light began to weakly illuminate the empty spaces.

"How did you find this place?"

"Aereon told me about it. Said it was at the bottom of it all. Under the Necropolis. What ties this place to the Underverse, or some fuck. Took me a while to find. It's a labyrinth down here. Don't come down here without me."

"Was this really a city once? On a planet?"

"That's what they tell me."

It was echoingly silent except for the crunch of their feet on sand and the sluggish sound of slowly moving water. Absurdly, it was a stream, undulating its way through the columns that now looked like ancient dead trees. Maybe they were ancient dead trees. There were things like rocks scattered, some of them as large as tables. Up close, the water was dark and smelled dead.

He brought her close to one of the table shaped rocks, still not letting go of her hand.

The stone was stained red. There were wrought iron manacles mounted on the stone. Her breath caught. "They used to sacrifice people here?"

"Yeah."

She fingered the manacles with her free hand. He let her go so she could examine them better. They were small, though he was dead certain they would fit over her wrists. "Children?"

He shrugged. Didn't feel inclined to tell her about the first time he'd come here. About the nearly skeletalized remains of a child chained to this rock. He'd spent a long time examining her, wondering whether it had been fast and merciful or whether she'd died slowly, alone in the dark, dying of thirst feet from a river.

The manacles around her bones had sprung open when he touched them. She could have been freed so easily, had anyone cared to do so.

He'd sat down beside her, heart oddly heavy, and even he had almost jumped out of his skin when the computer started talking to him. Called itself it the conduit. Knew who he was. Answered his questions. Pledged obedience without question. But would only talk to him when he sat on this rock.

She'd died fast, it said. An opened jugular. He was glad.

While her flesh had mostly rotted away, the simple white dress was made of some synthetic fabric, untouched by time. He'd rolled her bones in the dress, tied the bundle together with the sleeves and the belt.

Learned this girl, and thousands before her, had died on this rock, all to tie this place to the Underverse. He'd almost ordered the computer to destroy the whole fuckin' city at that. He couldn't stop thinking of Jack, chained to this rock, dying fast, dying slow, dying alone, dying circled by screeching monsters. Only the hope she might be alive had kept him from doing something apocalyptic that night. Only the fact the bones were too small to be hers. Only the fact the computer said this girl had died more than two decades ago. He wished it had known her name.

He carried her bones back into his chambers and incinerated them quietly. Hung the necklace on a doorknob. Touched it every day.

Somewhere, lost in thought, he'd sat down on the stained rock. Jack hadn't. She'd even put down the manacles, moved a little away from him. "You love me," she said. There was a flatness in her voice he didn't understand.

"Yeah," he said, noncommittally.

She eased away. "I've read stories of the gods ordering kings to take someone they love to some sacred space, chain her to a rock and sacrifice her. Or leave her for the monsters to rip apart . . ."

He stared at her, not understanding what she was saying. Understanding only that she was moving away. Not good. He didn't trust this place. He was oppressed by things swirling, just out of reach, among the pillars; hungry ghosts who longed for him to join them. They were afraid of him, he thought, but as she eased away, they were settling around her.

_Not acceptable. _He moved fast, closed a hand around her upper arm, harder than he meant too. They fled. He could almost hear them screaming.

The sharp smell of her fear surprised him. "Why did you bring me here, Riddick?"

_Oh, fuck._ She was getting entirely the wrong idea.

He kept his grip on her, but tried to be gentle. "I didn't bring you here to die." He sat back down on the rock, pulled her down next to him, softly. "It's just a place. A place I don't want you to tell anyone about. Listen. Conduit?"

"Yes, Lord Marshal?" a mechanical male voice slithered out of the dark.

"This is Jack."

"Hello, Jack."

"Remember her."

"Yes, Lord Marshal."

"She can go anywhere, unless I specifically forbid it."

"Yes, Lord Marshal."

"Open every door. Fly every ship." Heard Jack gasp, her fear replaced by something meltingly sweet.

"Yes, Lord Marshal."

"Make it irrevocable. Tell no one."

"Yes, Lord Marshal."

"That's all."

"Yes, Lord Marshal." There was a click, and it seemed the mechanical voice was not listening any more.

"Every ship?" Her voice was wondering.

"Yeah. If something happens to me, take Ziza and get out. You know how to pilot, right?"

Damn it, she was tearing up again. Her eyes were shining with something like adoration. That irritated him.

She said, almost teasingly, "Kyra made sure I did. But aren't you afraid I'll run away?"

He took her face in his hands. Her fear gone, she raised her face to make eye contact, a dreamy look on her face like she expected him to kiss her, wanted him to kiss her. Had a sudden image of taking her, roughly, on this rock where so many children had died. It was far more appealing than it should be.

His pitched his voice low, his cadence slow. "You run, I chase. You hide, I hunt. And I will kill anyone who gets between us."

She swallowed, the look of adoration fading fast. That also irritated him. She broke eye contact.

"Jackie. I'm not a good man. Don't think you are going to redeem me."

He actually felt slightly guilty. He let go of her face, kept talking as if he had not said anything to feel guilty about. "Thing about this place, no one but me has been here for decades. I think they've forgotten how to get down here. But for some reason there's a direct computer interface no one seems to be listening to." He grinned. "Maybe it's a Lord Marshal thing."

She nodded, without looking at him. Her eyes were hooded, distant, now. He went on. "Your access only works on voice and biometrics. If there's a mechanical back up, it won't help you. If you're inside a cell, you'll be staying there.

"Don't let anyone know. Only you and I know it. Let's keep it that way. You might need every second."

She had turned away from him, picked up the manacles again. Ancient cast iron, roughly made, with the two loops fixed close together into a figure eight. She started fingering them, turning them over and over in her hands. The silence stretched. Finally, she broke it. "Lemniscate. Ouroboros."

"What?"

"Infinity signs. See how each loop is a snake eating its own tail? That's the Ouroboros. Then they are set so close to each other they make an infinity sign. A Lemniscate. That class where we read Gilgamesh, the one Kyra had me take, we studied this. In some cultures, they are goddess symbols." She started tracing her finger around the twin loops.

_What the fuck is she talking about now? _

He didn't really care what she meant. But he couldn't bear what she was doing any more. "Put those down," he growled. She froze. Laid the manacles down carefully.

"Okay. Why?"

He actually felt torn. Finally, with a voice so low it was almost lost in the murmur of the waters, "I found someone here. A girl. Chained to this rock. Your size, when we met. Back on that planet."

"Alive?"

"No."

She shuddered, made eye contact for an instant. She looked raw. "You thought it was me?"

"No. But . . . she made me of think you. All the ways you could die in the dark, without me . . ." His voice trailed away.

He hadn't meant to tell her that.

"That's why you sent your men after me. You couldn't stop thinking of me dying."

"I told you I wanted you safe. Did you doubt me?"

"I'm not naïve, Riddick. I know you left me to die."

He chewed on that for a long time. Finally, admitted it. "Yeah. I did. Once. Never again."

Her voice was soft. "And sometimes, when you look at me, it's not exactly with the eyes of a loving older brother."

_Is that what you want? _"No."

She gave him a sad smile, ran her hand over the rock, over the grit of dried blood. "You're getting predictable, you know."

"Huh?"

"You treat me well, you do something incredibly kind and thoughtful, and when I start to relax, remember I love you, you go all psycho-predator on me."

He couldn't help smiling. "Never said I had social skills. This human thing is completely new to me. Or whatever we are. I'm much better at playing the monster in the dark."

She actually laughed. "It really burns you up that you care about me, doesn't it?"

To his surprise, he gave her an honest answer. "Sometimes. Fuckin' Catch 22. If I didn't, you'd be safer."

"I'd be safer than I am with the god-king of killers, in the belly of a war machine, sitting on a rock they used to kill children on? How did we get mixed up in this?"

Now, he laughed. "Don't ask me. I was just lookin' for you."

She rested her head on his shoulder. His arm went around her, automatically. "Would you do something for me?"

_Find your daughter? Give you your own planet? Give you the still beating heart of the Chief Justice of the Galactic Supreme Court? I'd give you almost anything but your own room. Just ask. Just ask. _

"Listening."

She didn't continue right away. "You're so good at keeping people just at the edge of terror, so they don't dare cross you."

He shrugged.

"You want me with you. I want to be with you. All I've wanted for years and years. But I don't think our, um, relationship is long for the universe if we keep replaying this pattern. We start to get close, you go psycho-predator on me, and I pull away. You give me some space, I start to relax, and it all starts over."

He said nothing.

"I can get past the kidnapping. You thought you were doing the right thing; you probably were. But every time you threaten me, it twists me up inside. Just – just be nice."

"Interesting." There was a long silence as he chewed over what she said. "I'll try."

"Thank you." Her voice was soft. "Do we have to walk up all those stairs again?"

"Dunno. Conduit?"

"Yes, Lord Marshal?"

"Is there another way out of here?"

"There is an airlock approximately fifty yards, 30 degrees from the altar, facing celestial north. It requires a space ship. Shall I summon one?"

_There's a way into the city here? That's not on any of the city's specs. _"No. Any other way?"

"No, Lord Marshal."


	11. Blood Connections

The trip back up was hard. Riddick seemed to belatedly remember that she wasn't supposed to exert herself, and half carried her up the last stretch. Had helped her to bed, pensively.

She was emotionally exhausted. Riddick kept finding new ways to whip her head around. She could not get the image of that girl, of _herself _chained to that rock, dying.

When she finally fell into a fitful sleep, she had the dream again, the dream where a comet destroyed her home. Remembered the dying words of the man she danced with. "Ask her. Ask the air." And at last, it occurred to her that maybe the meaning was not all that hidden. Aereon was so . . . airy, after all.

In the morning, instead of going with Riddick, she went to talk to Aereon. He was disappointed, but didn't seem inclined to argue it with her.

This time, she didn't let herself be distracted by how awkward talking to this woman was. "Why are you here?"

"This is the place I need to be."

"Why?"

Aereon looked at her steadily. "I tell you this, I put both of our lives in danger."

"Maybe that's why I'm here too."

Aereon smiled at her. "Alright. The Necromongers are trying to end all sentient life in the universe. This place is a giant mouth for the Underverse, and they are trying to pull everything through it."

Jack gasped. "How? Why?"

Aereon sighed. "As for the second, they think it's the right thing to do. As for the first . . .It's hard to explain. But . . . planets spin along an axis, pole to pole. Solar systems too. Spinning wheels in the sky. Galaxies too. Symbolically speaking, the universe also rotates along an axis. The poles . . . well, one way to see them is life and death. The path between those poles . . . not a straight line. More like an infinite spiral, with the universe rotating around it. Metaphorically. Through that axis, that path, life pours into the maw of death; death gives birth to life. Stars are born, stars die, from their corpses become new stars. It all moves.

"They are trying make it stop. Take all life into the Underverse. Somehow, they've created a . . . connection. Something about this place funnels into the Underverse like matter falling into a black hole. Once it hits critical mass . . . everything falls into it. End of time. End of life. World without end."

"Oh." Jack's voice was small. "What do we do?"

Aereon looked away. "I don't know. I thought . . ." Her voice trailed off. She started again. "We think, maybe, this city is built on some piece of the Underverse, spat out. We think the connection is fragile, and that part of the role of the Lord Marshal is to nurture it. I do not think Riddick does that. I . . . hope it will wither and fade."

"A piece of the Underverse? Like . . . a rock?"

Aereon's breath caught. "Very much like a rock. What can you tell me?"

"Riddick showed me a rock. It was--" Jack swallowed. "It had manacles set on it. He told me he found a girl's skeleton there."

"Blessed be," Aereon breathed. "Can you tell me where?"

"No." Jack flushed. "You know he can see in the dark? It was really dark, right until we got there."

Aereon's sharp eyes were hard on her. "This is important, child. Do you think _he's _ever killed anyone there?"

Jack shook her head sharply. "No. I'm sure he hasn't."

Aereon was nodding. "Good. We have to keep him alive. And I need you to try to remember how to get to the rock. If we can destroy it--"

They were interrupted by a polite, but firm, knock. Not waiting for a response, a Necromonger, polite in a way the heavily armed sometimes were, entered. Made his way to Jack. "Madam. You will come with me, please."

"Why?"

The man looked surprised that she'd question him, gave her an appraising look. Seemed to consider not answering. Finally, politely, "the Lord Marshal requires your presence." It was not a request.

Four guards took her to the med deck. The place was busy, but parted before her. Good to have heavily armed men behind you sometimes. They took her to a small room. Riddick was in there, a few doctors, and a stasis tube.

As she entered, he ushered the doctors out of the room and closed the door. Relaxed against it. "They figured out how to defuse the princess. Thought you should be here when she woke up. A friendly face."

She gazed down at Pentheselia, asleep in a glass coffin, looking strangely like Kyra despite the darkness of her skin. Jack fixed Riddick with a look. "You really like this fairy tale, don't you?"

He looked at her blankly.

"The one about girls sleeping in glass caskets, waiting to be woken up by a handsome prince?"

He frowned at her, obviously not tracking. "You think Cecile Tardis is handsome?"

"What?"

"Her prince."

"It's a metaphor, Riddick."

"Hmmm. Metaphor." He seemed to be chewing on the word.

"Why isn't he here?"

"Who?"

"Her husband, Riddick? Wouldn't his face be friendlier than mine?"

He smiled a smile that showed teeth.

"Wanted to talk to her first."

_But he's converted, _she thought._ He's yours. He helped with this. You could say anything in front of him. _

_Even that you are thinking of marrying his wife? _The thought made her surprisingly uncomfortable.

He flipped a switch. The glass cover retracted, and the revival process began.

"Riddick?" Her voice came out smaller than she intended.

"Yeah, kid?"

"Are you thinking of marrying her?"

"Not really."

"Are you going to make her convert?"

"Haven't thought about it."

Pentheselia woke up fast. Her eyes fixed on Riddick, puzzled, then on Jack. She smiled and sat up, easily.

_Damn, that woman's strong. I could barely sit up. _"I see I took a nap."

"Yeah," Riddick said, drawing the word out, offering nothing.

Jack grumped, got the woman a drink of water. "Here. Welcome back."

"What . . . happened?"

Jack gave Riddick a glance. He didn't seem inclined to offer anything. Apparently, that was her job. She decided to be frank. "You had an explosive in you. All of your people did. We think you were the Trojan Horses of the day. They figured out how to remove it, with your husband's help."

"My husband?"

"He converted."

"My soldiers?"

"The ten thousand ship armada? They're here. They all have agreed to join them – us – the Necromongers."

Pentheselia's eyes were calculating. "One hundred thousand of our soldiers?"

Jack hesitated, looked at Riddick. "'bout that."

"Converting."

"Slowly," he rumbled. "We're taking that part slow. Volunteers first."

"And me?"

"Do you want to convert?"

"Not particularly."

Riddick looked from Jack to Pentheselia. "I'll make you a deal. You swear that you and your armies will protect Jack if I can't, and you don't have to convert. You keep control of your armies and you answer only to me."

Jack's breath caught, shocked.

Pentheselia looked thoughtfully from Riddick to Jack, back to Riddick. "Cecile?"

"He's your subordinate and your problem."

"And my original offer of an alliance?"

"Not sure about that. We can talk about it. But I don't trust your father. He put a bomb in his daughter. Makes me edgy."

"I can see that." In one fluid motion, Pentheselia was out of the casket and kneeling on the floor. "I accept."

As if he had known the ceremony before hand, Riddick pulled out a shiv, handed it to her. "A favorite."

"I'll use it well," she said, and rose to her feet gracefully. The weapon disappeared. She turned luminous eyes on Jack. "And you? You'll accept my protection?"

_Good grief, _Jack thought. _I didn't think this could get weirder. _But all she said is "Yes, princess."

"Good. I'm eager to review my troops."

They walked out together, but Riddick put his hand on Jack's arm as she went to follow him out the door. "Why don't you get yourself checked out while you're here."

"Something happened to her?" Pentheselia said, an odd note in her voice.

"Yeah. I'll tell you on the way." They left Jack in the med deck, feeling a little lost. Though she took some comfort in the ultimate clean bill of health, though with an injunction to take things easy at first, the walk back to the Lord Marshal's chambers felt oddly lonely. Notwithstanding the heavily armed escort.

_She's a better mate for him than me. Why am I the one sleeping in his bed?_

The mysteries of Riddick's mind.

_Fuck_. _He can control me completely. She's got an army. She was raised to rule an empire. He tries to pick her up, she'll probably kick his ass. I can't even wriggle out of his grasp. I'm not even brave enough to try. _

The thought made her insides ache. Was that why she was here? Because Riddick still thought of her as his powerless little girl?

_Don't be a nitwit. If someone to dominate was all he wanted, he could pick any girl off of any world, he didn't have to spend a year searching and send a ship halfway across the galaxy for you. Or he could have sent a warship for the most beautiful women anywhere. He's attached to you. He thinks you are his family. Hell, he could be right. He and Kyra do seem to have something fundamental in common with each other._

_If this was some weird subliminated pedophilia thing, he'd have moved on you long ago. You would have let him do what ever he wanted back on the skiff, and he never once showed the slightest interest. _

_Stop talking yourself into crazy. _

She changed her mind. Decided to walk around the city. Time to start understanding this place. This place she hoped to destroy. This place she suddenly had hope she could destroy.

She had not gone far before Dame Vaako fell into step beside her, gathered her arm with seeming affection. "The little Lady Jack. Good to see you up and about."

_She's watching me. _

_If I marry Riddick, I'll out rank her._

The thought seemed to come from nowhere. Still, she couldn't resist twisting the knife a little. It was clear this woman was very jealous. "Do Lord Marshals ever marry?"

Dame Vaako actually flinched. "It can happen."

"What is his wife called? The Lady Marshal?"

"You two are planning to wed?" Her voice actually cracked.

"Us? No. I'm just curious."

"Yes. I see that."

"Him and the princess, maybe. If he got married, who would do the ceremony?"

"He would. No one else can bind him."

Jack actually giggled. "So would he have to say 'Now I may kiss the bride?'"

"He doesn't have to say anything. Just simply declare it. Or he could have a ceremony."

"Interesting."

"May I give you some advice?"

"Sure."

"Do not marry him. Do not let the princess marry him. To put a woman who has not accepted our faith on the throne above us . . . would not sit well. Especially since he has yet to validate his claim to the throne by participating in the ancient ceremonies or even visiting the Underverse.

"People like you. They are grateful that you discovered the Illium sabotage, and that Riddick . . . usually . . . spends his time with you rather than pursuing their wives or sisters or subordinates. Which of course is his right. But part of why you are liked is that you are retiring. No threat to the order. If you become queen, that all changes. And it will put you at great risk."

Jack gave up trying not to stare at her. "Riddick has what rights?"

"My dear, this is his kingdom. He has rights over everyone. He can do anything he wants to anyone here."

"Oh." Jack's voice was small.

Dame Vaako smiled, beautifully. "Necromonger law. Any person of higher rank has . . . access to any person of lower rank. For any purpose. Only actual military necessity trumps."

"What's your rank?"

"Lord Vaako is generous. He has set me beside him as his equal. Since he is Riddick's heir, I am the highest ranking Necromonger woman."

"So you could order me to do things?"

"I could. Anyone could. Technically. You have no rank here, your position has never been formalized. But it would clearly displease the Lord Marshal. So do not fear. He would kill anyone who would dare assert their . . . legal privileges over you."

"Well," Jack laughed, nervously, babbling. "We do share blood."

"What do you mean?"

Jack regretted she had said anything. "It's silly."

"Tell me, child," Dame Vaako said, with so much warmth that Jack thought she really was trying to be her friend.

"Before we . . . parted ways, we did that thing, where you cut yours hands and hold them against each other . . ." she trailed off. Something was shrieking at her to keep her mouth shut.

Dame Vaako was under no such restraint. "So," she said, thoughtfully, "his blood flows in your veins."

"I'm guessing you guys don't do that sort of thing here?"

"Oh no. We do something very much like that." Her eyes were glinting. Fascinated. Delighted. With that, Dame Vaako bowed graciously, and left.

_That woman is going to eat me. Oh god, maybe these guards are here for my protection. _Decided that touring the Necroverse wasn't going to be fun after all. Went back to the rooms she was beginning to think of as her own. Looked up the schematics of the city. Figured out it was a giant wheel, slowly spinning for no good reason she could identify. It didn't need it for gravity. Also figured out that the throne room, the Lord Marshal's chambers, and that strange altar in the caves were all on the center of the wheel. Made her feel funny, like she was bound to the trunk of a giant tree, waiting for the end of the world.


	12. Being Vaako

Lord and Dame Vaako tried hard to talk every day, though in the past year, conversations had grown strained. Lord Vaako's almost slavish devotion to Riddick at first amused, and now annoyed, his wife. Dame Vaako wanted Riddick dead already. Vaako was his heir. She wanted that seat. One way or another.

They had planned to dine together tonight. Dame Vaako was brushing her hair, thoughtfully. "Have you noticed the new converts seem more loyal to Riddick than they did to Lord Zhylaw?"

Lord Vaako stared at her. "No. I had not noticed that."

"Mmmmm.

"Did you hear that he is not requiring the Illium princess to convert?"

"Yes."

"Mmmmm."

"What are you implying?"

"Nothing, my lord. Just noticing."

"Stop noticing things about the Lord Marshal."

"Will you stop noticing things about his little girl?"

He actually flushed. "I don't know what you mean."

"I have heard you went on your knees in front of her."

"She was worthy of praise. Greater service to the Underverse than you have rendered lately."

"So I hear. But I also hear you watch her."

"I watch her because he watches her. I want to make sure she continues to serve the Underverse."

Dame Vaako rose, hissed at him. "She does not. And Riddick is thinking of making her queen. You are his successor. What if he gets her with child, decides to leave this to a child fathered on that woman? Displaces you? Rejects our faith completely?"

Vaako stood up, glowered. "I won't listen to this blasphemy any more." He stormed away.

"Pity," Dame Vaako mused. Put on a fetching gown. Went to talk to Toal.


	13. Better People

Riddick made his way through his chambers silently. Jack was working out, for the first time since the disastrous night when the Illium attacked. He'd almost forgotten how fast, how graceful, she was. She could be a hell of a fighter some day.

Something had happened since he had left her in the med deck. The smell of her fear hung in the air. Like something had gone wrong. But the guards had not submitted any report. It was setting his teeth on edge. A pity, after some very satisfying hours with Pentheselia.

He cleared his throat. "Clean bill of health?"

She jerked, spun around. She hadn't known he was there. The look she gave him was cautious, appraising. "Yeah. Mostly." She took a drink of water. "Wanna go around?"

He stepped up, but stayed relaxed. "Mostly?"

"Yeah. They said to take things slow, just to be sure." She made a feint towards him. He blocked it gently. They slipped into an easy rhythm.

After a few minutes, she offered, gingerly, "I saw Dame Vaako again today."

_That'd explain it._ Didn't want her talking to that snake. He pushed a little harder. She pushed back, before flagging, slightly.

"She told me something weird." Her eyes were hooded, anxious.

He shrugged. Feigned disinterest. Let her gain some ground.

"She said that under Necromonger law, anyone of higher rank gets to . . . do anything they want to someone lower rank."

"Hm."

"She said I had no rank. That, legally, anyone could do anything to me."

"Did she." He kept his voice disinterested.

"Is she right?" Her voice cracked slightly on the last word.

"Don't worry about it."

"Why?"

"'cause you're with me."

"Yeah. About that. She said specifically that you, legally, can do anything to anyone."

He shrugged again. "Pretty much always could." He smiled. "Never cared much for whether it was legal." Made a quick move, pinned her against him for several heartbeats. Let her go. They started again, a little slower.

"Riddick, can I ask you something?"

"Won't stop you."

"I get why you left me. I even get why you brought me here. But I don't get why you act like I'm your . . . mistress. Dame Vaako told me you used to . . . exercise your rights, and you stopped when I got here. I don't understand. So many of these women are so beautiful, and I'm not even . . ." Her voice, increasingly tinged with woe and hysteria, trailed off. She took two deep breaths, seemed to get control.

"Why me?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. Got a theory. Might not be good for you to know."

"I'm a big girl."

_No, you're really not. You are barely grown up. If I had found you on New Mecca with some guy like me, I would have killed him. _

_If I found you with anyone, I probably would have killed him. But I might have tried to hide it from you if it had been someone . . . more appropriate. _

He sighed. "Remember when Kyra told you your people were mighty?"

"Yeah."

"You're my people. I think. Furyan."

"You think?"

"Yeah."

"But you don't know."

"No."

"Didn't your people run enough tests on me?"

"They weren't looking for that."

"Why?"

"Necros kill Furyans, when they can. Melissa -- that doctor – is sweet. She wouldn't look for it. And anyway, the only way I know to be absolutely sure is to hand you over to the Quasi-Deads. Didn't wanna do that."

She backed away, breathing heavily. "Necros kill Furyans?"

"They try."

"Oh fuck, Riddick." They circled, one, two, three, times. "You really are a piece of work."

"Huh?"

"You tell me we're the same people, that's why we connected. And that these people were exterminated by the Necromongers. And you bring me to live in the middle of them. And you won't even let me have my knife."

He shrugged. "When I'm sure of you."

"I was always sure of you. Even those times when I hated you."

Almost without thinking, he flipped her to the ground. She tried to roll back up, but he dropped on top of her, fixing her to the mat with his knees tight around her hips, his hand on her throat. Careful not to place any real pressure. Just enough to feel the rapid susurration of her breath whispering through her windpipe. Just enough to feel her heartbeat thundering through his palm. Just enough to know if she was lying.

His voice was a purr. "When did you hate me?"

She picked at his hand, ineffectively. "I'm over it now."

"Not what I asked."

She stilled, seemed to relax. Her heartbeat thundering through his palm gave lie to that. "I don't . . . Look, you had bad choices. You did the best you could with them. I get that."

"After I left you?"

"Maybe a little. Mostly, I just missed you then."

"When those mercs grabbed you?" His voice was soft.

Her heartbeat accelerated hard. He almost regretted pushing her. "Yeah. For a while."

He shrugged. "I can understand that."

Her heartbeat started to slow. After a very long time, he leaned over, whispered into her ear. "_Those_ times?"

She tried to buck him off. He shifted his weight to trap her more securely. She licked her lips, looked away. He managed not to tighten the grip on her throat.

"When Kyra came back. Told me I had to come with her. Took me to that school."

"What does that have to do with me?"

"Because then I knew that for the rest of my life, I would always be hiding from your enemies. And there I was, locked on the top of a mountain, pretending to be someone I wasn't, learning to do jobs I could never do, because of you."

"Because of me?"

"It was a good school, Riddick. It was preparing people for power. They do background checks on those types of people. It was abundantly clear that anyone who looked hard at my past or in my head would see you. Any place that took me in was taking the risk that more mercs would try to get to you through me. And there was nothing I could do about it. Not without . . ."

She shut up abruptly.

"Without what?"

She swallowed. Tried to look away. He used his other hand to hold her face steady.

"Without betraying you," she whispered.

He settled back on his haunches, slightly.

"Any other time?"

She started to shake her head. Swallowed at the feel of his hand on her throat as she did so. "No."

"You should have."

"What?"

"Betrayed me. Had a life."

"You're an idiot."

"I'd betray you."

"Maybe I'm a better person than you are, Riddick."

He laughed, a deep belly laugh. Let go of her throat. Helped her stand up.

Then he kissed her again, deeply.


	14. Not Hearing

She was passive at first. Just let him kiss her, while he ran his hands lightly over her body, over her clothes. Finally, she relaxed into the kiss. Began to respond, shyly.

Very carefully, he broke off the kiss. Looked down on her, tenderly.

"I just figured out something," she said.

He groaned, softly, and nuzzled her neck. She forged ahead. "Dame Vaako hates you. Every time we talk, she tries to drive a wedge between us."

He pulled back from her neck, slowly. "Jackie, are you always going to think about a woman when I kiss you?"

She blushed scarlet. "Uh--"

A massive finger was on her lips. "Shhhh. You're going to give me issues." He started kissing her throat, slipping his hands inside her clothes.

"Riddick--"

"I know she hates me, Jackie. I woulda snapped her neck, except it would break her husband's heart."

"You care about Lord Vaako's heart?"

"I like him." He caught her hand, pressed it to his chest, above his heart. "Not as much as I like you. Don't you like me?"

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "I like you."

"And didn't you say I'm beautiful?" he teased.

Her eyes were boring into his. She went very still. "You are everything I have wanted since we met. I wanted to be you. Then I wanted to be with you. I have trouble imagining being with anyone else. Even when I hated you. Even when I thought my whole life would be about hiding from your enemies.

"But first, it's always hurt."

He groaned again, softly. "It won't hurt. We'll take it slow." He ran his hands lower, very conscious of the rush of heat and scent. _At least part of her wants this . . . _

She took a deep, shuddering breath. "And second, if we do this and you leave me again . . . I'm scared there won't be anything left of me."

He nuzzled her, hands slipping lower again. "Not my plan. Jackie." _ I don't think I could leave you again. Could barely do it when it was the right thing to do. Now, it would be wrong . . . _Then he was kissing her, more insistently. Hands slipping further inside her clothes. Her breath caught. She wriggled away, slightly.

"Are you saying no, Jack?"

"No? I'm not saying no. Not to you."

"Let's stop talking now." Then he was carrying her towards the bedroom, and if she said anything else, he could not hear it.


	15. Whither Thou Goest

When he picked her up, she almost panicked. Should be used to it now; since she'd come to the Necropolis, she had been carried around a whole lot. Infantilizing. She forced herself to rest her head against his shoulder, wrap her arms around his neck. Kyra's voice was echoing in her head. "Just let it happen. Don't fight."

_I'm taking sex advice from a dead woman. _She snorted, softly. Nonetheless, she managed to relax against him.

Riddick sat down on the bed, set her on her feet in front of him. His hands were in her clothes, removing them gently, inexorably, taking his time.

"Beautiful," he whispered.

She shook her head. " Not compared to you."

"Shhh . . . Just let me. . ."

She was naked, in front of him, and he was running his hands up and down her, worshipfully. Then his clothes were gone, and she was transfixed, again, by just how preternaturally beautiful he was. Then he pulled her onto the bed.

* * *

Jack was sitting in a tower, content, when Kyra dropped out of the sky. The older woman smiled at her, with actual love in her eyes. "Whither thou goest, kid. Thy people."

Something about that woke Jack up immediately. Realized, abruptly, that Riddick had been keeping the light levels in the room higher than he had the first few nights, probably higher than he wanted to. One of his strange kindnesses. She could even see him, slightly, in the darkness. He seemed to be deeply asleep, with the slight smile on his face that was his version of giddy happiness.

She slipped out of bed, padded over to the computer terminal, to look up the achingly familiar quote.

Didn't take long. It was familiar because Abu said it to her, before Kyra had come, when she had almost ran away to look for Riddick. "_Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people._"

She hadn't understood why Abu thought it would be comforting. Now she realized he was trying to say – it's not just you. Many people want to follow someone they love. If Riddick had taken her with him, she could have said it . . . and, like the woman in the ancient story, would have faced abject poverty or worse. What Riddick hadn't wanted for her. And if she had gone with him, or Kyra, she would have had to do terrible things . . .

_I would have gone anywhere, done anything, for either of them, if they'd only wanted me. Wither thou goest . . . _The familiar ache began to pull her down, and her eyes were prickling with tears.

_But now that one of them does want me?_

_And that's the elephant in the room. _She laughed softly at herself.

"Whatcha doing, Jackie?"

Riddick was behind her, hands massaging her neck and shoulders, reading over her shoulders. "I don't get it."

Jack put her hands over one of his. "Abu said it to me once, when he was trying to comfort me; that sometimes families aren't forged by blood. The woman who says it becomes the mother of kings . . .

"I didn't find it very comforting. But I think I get it now."

"Hmm." He was clearly not interested. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

"No. It was . . . nice."

"Nice?"

"Very nice."

"Let's see if we can do better than nice." Then he moved her chair, knelt in front of her, caressed breasts and hips. She melted into him, and forgot, for a moment, that there was anything but him in the darkness.


	16. Sliding IN

The dreams were coming thick. This time, she was sitting at a table at the edge of a graveyard. Kyra was there, and Riddick, and another woman who seemed achingly familiar. Dark skinned and long haired. On the other side of the table, a battlefield littered with bodies stretched as far as she could see.

The body of a middle aged man lay on the table. The other three were cutting and eating slices of his flesh. Kyra and the other woman vigorously, hungrily, Riddick meditatively.

"You're not eating," Kyra said, smiling.

Jack shook her head. "Not hungry."

"Have something to drink," Kyra offered. "Shirah, pass the decanter." The other woman obliged. Kyra poured something red into a gold goblet, handed it to Jack with a friendly smile.

Jack took a drink, dutifully. Almost choked. "It's blood."

"Yeah. Blood of our enemies." Kyra poured more blood into a wooden cup, drank deep. "Drink up."

"Just became a vegetarian."

Kyra laughed, indulgently. "When we're done. We've got more enemies to eat. You've got to do your share. Gotta do my share too, if one of you guys don't finally bring me back so I can end this."

"I don't have any enemies."

Shirah's voice was sad. "Oh yes you do, child."

"None I'm going to eat."

Kyra speared a piece of the man's flesh on the tip of a knife, thrust it at Jack, still laughing, still loving. "Eat. It will make you strong."

Jack tried to get up, leave the macabre picnic, but her legs weren't working. "No. Knock it off."

"Maybe you'd like someone else better. Be right back." Kyra's legs worked fine. She got up, started searching through the slain.

Riddick had gone to sleep, cushioning his head on his massive arms.

Kyra was back soon. Dumped Dame Vaako's body on the table. "How about this one?" Started sawing away at her.

"Stop it. I know her."

"Yeah, and she knows you. She'd eat you."

"Doesn't make it right."

"Whatever." Kyra and Shirah tore in with gusto. The body disappeared except for the face and hands. "We'll leave those for Riddick when he wakes up. He likes those parts. Want another?"

"Yes, please," Shirah said, happily.

Kyra launched herself back at the battlefield. Came back with a woman. Jack knew her too. Melissa, the young doctor who had patched her up, checked her out, been kind to her.

Alive. Dazed, but conscious.

"Kyra, don't. It's not right."

"So stop me."

Her legs finally responded. She tried to push between Kyra and the woman. Couldn't. Riddick was still dead asleep. Kyra was laughing. Cut a slice from the woman's arm and chewed it tauntingly as the woman cried and begged and Jack tried everything she could think of to stop this, but the thick and sticky, like molasses. For Kyra, the air was just air.

In the end, she climbed on top of the table, shielded the woman with her body. Then someone slid a knife in her side.


	17. Morning Promises

Riddick had been watching Jack dream. Watching her dream was a voyeuristic pleasure he had mildly enjoyed when she was a child, and enjoyed much more now. Imagining what she must be dreaming about, given the tiny muscle movements and the smell of her emotions.

But this dream was one of those that worried him. She seemed happy at first, then horrified. She seemed to be trying to protect gasped and spasmed exactly like she would if she was knifed in the side. He really didn't like that her body seemed to know these things.

Her eyes jerked wide open, staring directly into his. She was breathing heavily. "You're awake." It was an accusation.

_Strange. _"Yeah. You okay?"

"Yeah. Just . . . bad dreams. Sorry I woke you."

"You didn't. Was I there?"

She flinched. "Sort of."

That surprised him. Never thought about whether he was in her explain a few things."What was I doing?"

She blinked a few times. "Sleeping."

"While someone hurt you?"

"Sort of."

He stroked her face. "Tell me."

She looked like she might refuse. Took a long, shuddering breath. "I dreamed I was in a grave yard at the edge of a battlefield. You, me, Kyra and someone else . . . you three were eating a corpse. Some older guy. I didn't know him. Kyra kept trying to get me to eat, but I wouldn't. After you finished . . . him, you went to sleep. Kyra and Shirah kept bringing new bodies, and they brought someone who wasn't dead yet, the doctor who helped me that night Tier . . . I tried to stop them . . . " her voice trailed off. She was actually shaking.

_Shirah? Oh, fuck. _He rolled her over, wrapped his arms around her. He didn't want her to see how completely this unnerved him. "Interesting. Shirah?"

"Yeah. Must know her from somewhere. Can't remember where . . . "

_ I know her. Knew her. If she's the same one, she wants Jack to take up the vengeance thing . . . _

The thought was extraordinarily uncomfortable. He didn't want Jack playing that game. Any vengeance needed, he'd take care of. But how do you tell dreams that enough was enough?

Then he was completely distracted by the fact that, at last, he could let his hands roam over her body while they spooned.

* * *

The talk with Toal had been very pleasing. Dame Vaako was practically purring when she came back to her chambers. Like her, he was deeply concerned about the Lord Marshal and these new converts. Very worried about the Lord Marshal's relationship with these unconverted women.

Toal was a good man. He would make a good Lord Marshal. Perhaps even better than Lord Vaako would have. She had loved him, but the man was too prone to sentimental weakness.

* * *

Morning came too soon. Riddick let them sleep through their normal work out, their normal breakfast with Ziza and her crew. He was finally roused by the insistent beeping of his communicator.

Toal's properly respectful tones. "Sire, you are due on the Salmatis for inspection within the hour."

Riddick groaned. Right. Salmatis inspection. He'd kept putting it off, mostly because Vaako had hinted, nervously, that he shouldn't take Jack there. But probably best to get this out of the way. He could be back for lunch, have lunch with Jack. Have Jack.

She was sleeping peacefully, now, without dreams. He dressed quietly. Knelt beside her, kissed her gently on the cheek. Her eyes fluttered open. Their eyes locked. She smiled and reached for his face. "Hey."

"Hey. Go back to sleep, baby. I've got something I have to do."

"I can't come?"

"The fuckers don't like women much where I'm going. I'll be back."

"Promise?"

He smiled. Kissed her deeply. "I promise."


	18. Took You Long Enough

There had been a change of plans. Lord Vaako volunteered to pilot the shuttle. Seemed to want to talk to him. Seemed to be having trouble getting the words out. Oh well. It'd come.

The Salmatis was strange ship; populated by a community of Necromongers who were considered odd and worryingly fundamentalist even by the priests on the Necropolis. Their vision was pure. While they were exactly and properly worshipful, they set his teeth on edge.

And something smelled wrong.

And something sounded wrong.

It was giving him a headache. And Vaako's anxiety wasn't helping.

After an hour of being shown trivial things by nervous men (there were no women on this ship, part of this group's purist vision that bothered Riddick in a way he could not quite identify), he called a break. Said he needed to consult with his right hand man. Drew Vaako into a little room. Pointedly ordered that their conversation not be monitored or recorded. Then he broke the camera off the wall.

"What's up?"

Vaako stared at him, obvious conflict on his face. "Sire."

"Cut the crap, Vaako. What's up?"

"Probably nothing. I just . . . had a feeling something might go wrong today. That . . . there might be an attempt on your life today."

"Happens all the time. But why do you think today?"

Vaako shrugged, looked at the wires spooling where Riddick had yanked the surveillance camera out of the wall.

_His wife. He thinks his wife is in on it. And he thinks we're still being listened to. _

_Fuck. If she's in on it, she'll go after Jack. _

I'm done with this.

With studied nonchalance, he said, "You're just paranoid." He shook his head, slightly.

Vaako barely nodded. They headed directly towards the space dock.

They were almost there when the attack began. No time to do anything but sprint for an escape vessel. The men might think they were cowards, but they'd all be dead soon.

They made it through the blast doors just as the power core exploded. Even with the blast doors closed, the shock of light knocked Riddick down, and everything went black.

* * *

Jack was reading, quietly, in their bed. She was still luxuriating in the smell of his body, in the memory of his hands and lips. He might be a monster, but he was her monster.

She heard voices. Assumed Riddick was back already. Odd that he was bringing someone to see her.

But it was not Riddick. Instead it was Commander Toal, surrounded by heavily armed men. In the Lord Marshal's bedroom. This was clearly not good.

Toal himself addressed her. "Ma'am, I have sad news. The Lord Marshal has been killed."

The book slid from her nerveless fingers. "Oh my god."

"A treacherous attack. I'm . . . sorry."

Jack was dimly aware that tears were streaming down her face. He kept talking.

"We've arrested some we believe involved, and we are in pursuit of the fleet that attacked. We will avenge him."

She stared up, uncomprehending.

"But I'm afraid you have to come with us."

She shook her head.

"I'm sorry. But you must be questioned. There are those who think you might be implicated as well."

She started to laugh, hysterically. "Right. I'm going to kill the one person in the universe who cares if I live or die."

Toal smiled at her, tiredly. "True. I believe you are innocent. But we have a way to confirm that. We will take you before the Quasi-Deads."

The questions were perfunctory. They knew she had nothing to do with it. They knew that already. Still left her shaking.

They brought her to a cell; a comfortable cell, but a cell nonetheless. They left her with the book she had been reading and a guard she had never met before, a big blond bruiser of a man with a brutish face whose hungry eyes never left her body. After a few hours, Toal came to see her.

"I'm pleased your innocence has been established."

She nodded with as much dignity as she could muster. "Thank you."

"I will be candid. Now, there are really only two choices for you." His voice was frank, compassionate.

"Death or conversion?"

"Essentially."

"Death."

Toal sighed. His eyes were strangely earnest, hopeful. "We would prefer that you make the other choice. We would like you present at the investiture, standing beside the new Lord Marshal, participating in the ceremony. A symbol of orderly succession."

She stared at him, nearly paralyzed. _Why do you care? _

_Because you don't want people to know you killed Riddick?_

_ Oh, god, did you kill Riddick?_

_ Kyra shook off conversion. At least for a moment . . . _

_ God I miss her. _

She stalled. "Lord Vaako's investiture?"

Something flickered across Toal's face. "No. I'm sorry. I should have told you. He was also killed. I am the next Lord Marshal."

Oh, this just gets better. Vaako liked me . . .

Wait, I'm important enough for the next Lord Marshal to be visiting me? They must want something from me . . . "You said you arrested someone for Riddick's mur—for what happened. Who?"

"Pentheselia. Some of her unconverted warriors. We think they sabotaged the shields on the Salmatis so that they would fail as an Illium attack began. They knew he was on that ship. That was the only ship they attacked. They will be executed."

She swallowed, tears falling again. She liked the princess. And with her dead, the last person in the galaxy who might have helped her was gone.

_Nothing I can do for her. Nothing I can do for anyone. _

_No. That was not true. They do want something from me. I can try. _One noble gesture before dying. "I'll make you a deal. I'll convert. I'll stand with you. But let Riddick's . . . other pets go. Ziza and her family. And Aereon. Let them go, give them a ship, give them money, and I'll stand beside you and smile."

Toal looked thoughtful. "Agreed."

"I want to see them leave. I want to see them enter hyperspace."

"Agreed."

* * *

After many more hours, they brought her to a dock. Toal himself was there. Lajjun was herding her flock of children towards a large ship. Ziza looked like she had been crying. _She loved Riddick too, _Jack thought. _Maybe more than I did. He was always so gentle with her. _ They let Lajjun approach, but not the children.

The two women stared at each other. They had never really liked each other. Lajjun was always afraid she'd bring some evil upon them. Maybe even blamed her a little for what had happened. Jack had always resented how fucking normal her life had been. But now she was regretting not trying harder to be her friend.

Almost shyly, she pulled the necklace Riddick had given her from her pocket. "Riddick gave this to me. I think it's worth something. For you guys."

Lajjun nodded, respectfully. "Thank you, Jack. And I'm – I'm sorry."

Jack nodded, tears prickling.

Aereon was next. She leaned close, eyes intense. "Do not go gentle into that good night/burn and rage at close of day/ Rage, rage against the dying of the light."

Fresh tears. Jack knew that poem. "Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight/Blind eyes could blaze like meteors--"

"That's enough." Toal interrupted. "Good day, Madam. May we not meet again."

"Good bye, Jack. May the elements keep you."

"They won't," Toal said, sardonically. "She's with us now. Or she will be."

Aereon left in her own ship. She saw each blur into hyperspace. They took her straight to the conversion chambers, fastened her securely with metal bonds to a metal frame, a metal spike in her neck.

* * *

There was pain. A great deal of it.

Sometimes, instead trapped in a ship of steel and glass, she felt like she was hanging from a tree in a forest. Maybe she was dreaming, though it did not feel like sleep. Instead of hours, she felt like she had been tied there for days, weeks, months. And everything hurt. Even though she was exhausted, sleep would not come.

But after what felt like days, she did. She dreamed. She dreamed the snake was back, the snake that had been Riddick, winding her in coils thicker than her own body, putting even more weight onto the bonds that cut deeply into her skin. Then it dwindled until it was only the thickness of her wrist. She was grateful, until it bit her on the breast, on the side, on the heel, before slipping away, leaving her delirious in pain. She could hear it down there, slithering. Merciful blackness took her again.

She dreamed she was floating on the waves when the monsters finally broke the surface of the waters. She dreamed one swallowed her whole, and she was drowning, screaming, in the indifferent darkness.

She dreamed she was eating living men and women, herself indifferent to their screams.

And she woke, really woke, to a sunrise dappling through leaves. The glass and steel of the ship were completely gone. There was a glade, and grass and sky, and she was tied to the rough bark of a tree with ropes.

Someone was cutting her down. "Took you long enough," Kyra said, sardonically.


	19. Aren't You Dead?

Jack crumpled off the tree. Kyra caught her. "Hey, sis." She got a shoulder under her, pulled her through a forest towards a small hut.

"Aren't you dead? What's going on?"

Kyra snorted. "Yeah. I died. Hurt like a mother. Cliff notes version. You're in the Underverse. You're not dead; sometimes, during the 'conversion' process, people pop through. We made sure you would. They'll drag you back soon. And I'm going to hitch a ride." She opened the door, pulled Jack in, laid her gently onto a cot.

Jack managed to sit up, sure she was hallucinating in pain. "What?"

Kyra growled softly, clearly frustrated. "Look. Trust me. I figured it out. How to get back. How to stop the Necros. Thank Nemesis he saved my body. You're going to bring me back, put me in it. Then we're gonna blow up that fucking rock they took from the Underverse. Remake the world. Then you, me, and Riddick are going to restart the Furyan race. It'll be fun." Her smile was bitter. She settled Jack at a small chair, poured her a glass of something very sweet and very alcoholic.

"Riddick's dead, Kyra."

Kyra startled. "No. Prophecy Boy can't be dead. He's not dead." She shook her head grimly. "No. He's not here. He'd be here if he was dead. Fuck. We're not done yet. Maybe he made a break for it. Fuck."

Jack stared at her. The idea that Riddick might not be dead, might have abandoned her, had simply never occurred. But sex changes people . . . _fuck. _ "Kyra, I don't know. Everything hurts. I just need time to think this through."

Kyra glared at her. "There's no time! You're gonna be dragged back to your body any second! I'm coming back, and we're gonna kill every last fucking one of them."

"Because they are killers?"

"That's one reason."

Jack laughed. "So are you. So was Riddick."

"We don't kill children."

"Riddick does. His armies have killed thousands of children. For all I know he killed my daughter."

Kyra's eyes softened. She didn't respond directly. "They killed our people, Jack. Old people. Children. They ripped babies out of their mothers' wombs and left both to die. They tore Riddick out of his mother's womb and tried to strangle him with his own umbilical cord. That's why he is what he is. He's a monster, but he's our monster. We have to stop them from killing the universe. We have to. But you have to help me."

"I have to? Or do I have a choice?"

For a moment, Jack thought Kyra was going to hit her. But the woman took a deep breath. "Look. It's not your fault. But it's worse than you know. You have a choice. I know – I know I've made a lot of choices for you. I've been surfing your dreams since you got here, I know Riddick's been making a lot of choices for you too. I'll make it up to you, I promise. But please – let me come back. Let me – let me be a hero."

"You've been _surfing my dreams?"_

Kyra looked guiltily defiant. "Yeah. Been trying to talk to you. You're really thick some times"

"How?"

"Look. The line between these two worlds is really thin in the Necropolis. You thought about me. We're connected. I found a way in."

Jack stared at her, things slotting into place. "You tried to get me to let Tier send me through the conversion process."

Kyra had the grace to look guilty. "Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because I could have rode back with you. Helped you convince Riddick to do the right thing. Bring it all down. Now that he's been dethroned, it's gonna be harder."

_Fuck._

Jack rubbed her eyes. _How could I be rubbing my eyes? Aren't I hanging in some hold some where?_ She stared hard at Kyra, trying to figure it out.

Kyra knelt in front of her. "Little sister, there's a lot of things I never told you. I wanted to keep you safe. But I need you. We need you."

Jack met Kyra's eyes. She felt herself falling into Kyra's eyes. Or maybe Kyra was falling into her eyes. "It's happening," Kyra whispered. "They are bringing you back. You have to choose."

_ If you choose wrong . . . _something impossibly deep whispered

_ What the hell, _she thought.

She made a choice.

* * *

Dame Vaako was supervising Jack's removal from the steel and glass apparatus. "Jack. Seems we left you in here through three cycles. I am so sorry. Simply can't imagine how such a thing could have happened. We'll get you rehydrated, don't you worry."

Jack fell at her feet, exhausted, hardly able to breath, thirsty beyond belief. The Dame made sympathetic noises. Then kicked her. Hard.

* * *

Riddick woke abruptly from a dream of dissolving into light. It had been warm. Now he was in a small ship, a cold ship, wrapped in a cocoon of blankets with another person. Not Jack. Not right. And the CO2 levels were uncomfortably high. Riddick untangled himself, explored the frigid air. They were on a small ship that smelled like it had been used to haul garbage.

"Vaako."

"My liege," Vaako's voice usually reverent voice was tinged with hysteria. "Praise be."

"Cut the crap, Vaako. It's Riddick . . . Why is it so damn cold?"

"I cut energy output to minimum to keep us hidden. In case anyone came back to check the wreckage."

_Wreckage. Right_. "Where's the fleet?"

"It must have jumped to hyperspace right after the Salmatis was destroyed. You were knocked out by the initial shock wave. I dragged you into this ship, hid us in the debris field."

_ Smart. _"Coup?"

"Coup."

"Who?"

Vaako didn't answer. Riddick sat down at the control panel, brought life support up to normal levels. Looked back at Vaako, who had still not moved from the cocoon of mylar blankets.

"I gotta piss." Riddick found the head, relieved himself, took a long drink of water before returning to the pilot's seat. Vaako had finally sat up. He was rocking slightly, clearly on the edge of hysteria. Not good.

"Why'd you make it through better than me?"

"I'm wearing body armor."

Riddick snorted. "You really did think something was gonna happen, didn'tya?"

"I feared."

"What's the range of this ship, Vaako?"

He was shaking his head. "It's no use. We can limp to some nearby planets, but we'd never catch up with the fleet."

_Go back? Do I want to go back? _Riddick started busying himself with the controls. _Fuck. _Somehow, he'd been knocked out for days. "You didn't turn on the beacon?"

"And let people know we're here? They'd destroy us."

"Maybe." He flipped on the emergency beacon. Not a whole lot of choice about that; this was a short range vessel. Vaako was right, there were a few systems they could make in weeks or months, but there was simply no way they would catch up with the fleet on their own. But if any good Samaritans picked them up . . .

He set course for the nearest shipping lane, started to inventory the supplies. They weren't so bad off, it turned out. For whatever reason, the ship was well supplied and a recycler could handle most of their physical needs. Vaako did good, picking it. They should be okay.

Better than the last time he was adrift in one of these little ships, with a child and a holy man . . .

Brought him back to Jack. He'd been trying not to think of her as a child; made his growing attraction to her feel weird. But she _had_ been . . . young. Still, she'd stepped up. Jack had helped sew up his leg, found the water, food and blankets and done everything she could for them as he fought fevers and the holy man slipped into his own delirium of grief and hopelessness. She'd pulled through. She'd pulled them through, those first few days, done pretty good after that. Wasn't until the second ship that picked up that she'd melted down, crying for the dead; indulging in self blame for bleeding the blood that drew the monsters to them.

He'd been tempted to ignore her. He liked her, for some reason, but hadn't really been planning on hanging around after he expurgated his guilt and got them someplace safe. Figured he didn't need any more brownie points with Abu's "compassionate" god by holding the kid's hand while she cried. Plus, she'd been careful to wait to cry until she was alone in the little room they'd given her. He could respect that.

But it hurt to hear her quiet sobs through the walls. And he really didn't want anyone else to comfort her.

_Damn. I told myself that was because I didn't want anyone else on that fucking ship to know she was a girl, the only girl on the ship, and I knew they'd figure that out if she was sobbing in their arms. That I didn't want her getting raped on my watch. But I just didn't want other people touching her, even then._

_For some fucked up reason, I needed someone to take care of, after what happened on that damn planet. Jack was safe to care for. She adored me. She trusted me. I could control her completely. I could take care of her without any real risk._

_What I really deserve the fucking medal for was leaving her someplace safe, instead of taking her into the dark, with me as a child. If only it actually had been safe, asshole. If I'd taken her with me, none of this would have happened. Not like she got a normal adolescence anyway._

_Damn. I can't figure out how I fucked up. She should have been safe._

_Unless someone ratted me out . . ._

_Possible. Abu told people . . . Aereon. Ziza. Lajjun._

_He told them later. And he knew where I was. When he betrayed me, he was straightforward about it. He wouldn't have sent mercs after his own foster daughter. Especially since he had to know I'd kill him when I found out._

_Fuck. Doesn't make sense. If Jack or Abu had said something official, she would have ended up in protective custody. To protect her from me._

_If those mercs had gotten caught kidnapping and raping a New Meccan girl, they all would have gone to prison the rest of their lives. One of the reasons it made sense to take her here. They were rich fuckers who took good care of their children._

_Until we destroyed them._

_We. Why is it we?_

_Something isn't right . . ._

_Fuck. Something really isn't fucking right._

Vaako finally untangled himself from the blankets, stumbled in the co-pilot's seat. Where Jack should be sitting.

With an unexpected pang of empathy, Riddick realized why Vaako was so miserable. He had thought his wife would not make an attempt on Riddick while he was there. He had been wrong. Poor guy. Always torn between loyalties.

After too many hours, the proximity detector beeped. Someone heard the beacon. Hopefully someone with a good ship. Because he was going back. Had to make sure Jack got away. Then he had to find her. He'd told her he wasn't planning on leaving her behind. Wasn't gonna let it be someone else's plan either.


	20. What's In My Veins

The ship approaching them looked familiar. Elegant. Powerful. Whimsical. It positioned itself gracefully beside them. Signaled. With a shrug, Riddick accepted the hail.

It was Aereon. "Hail, Lord Marshal," she said, her lips twitching.

"Aereon. You finally get away and you waste it to come to rescue me?" He could not keep the amusement out of his voice.

She smiled. "You're the best of many bad options, child."

He smiled, almost goofily glad to see her. "Did Jack get away?"

Aereon looked down. "No."

"Is she alive?"

"Yes. She made a deal with Toal for our freedom."

_Fuck. That kid's gonna be the death of me. _"Huh."

"Do you need a ride?"

"I need a fast ship."

She smiled. "Rhea is fast. Come aboard, sire."

After an agonizingly long transfer, they were all in the small cockpit of the Rhea, hyperspace sleeting past them. "Tell me about Jack's deal."

"As I understand it, she agreed to stand with Toal during the investiture in exchange for the freedom of your," she smiled, slightly, "pets."

"That's all they wanted?"

"Symbol of an orderly succession," Vaako said, bitterly. "Since you did not name him, and he did not defeat you, her standing beside him will comfort the people. Also --" He stopped abruptly.

"What?" Riddick felt something twist deep down.

Vaako gazed at the still stars outside. "When a new Lord Marshal is called, we kill a girl to renew our connection to the Underverse. You never did that. Jack would make sense."

Aereon shook her head, vigorously. "No. There'd have to be blood. There's no blood that ties you two . . ." she trailed off at his dark look.

"There is."

She's not . . . your _sister _is she?"

He glowered at her. "Of course not."

"Then how?"

"It was a stupid thing. But she wanted to. Cut our hands, pressed them together. My blood in her veins. Her blood in mine. Years ago. I'd almost forgotten."

That was a lie. He'd thought about it often. That little piece of her, in his veins. That little bit of him, inside her.

"You have a living woman's blood in you?" Vaako was shocked.

_Living woman? _"Yeah. What do you fuckers have against women anyway?"

"They bleed."

"Men bleed."

"Not like women do."

"Huh?"

"Their blood brings the abomination."

"There's that word again. What abomination?" Riddick's voice was a threat. A lesser man would have flinched.

"Life," Vaako whispered.

_They're gonna kill her because she bleeds? Fuck. I'll show them blood. Should have killed all those fuckers when I had the chance._

Aereon's voice cut through his rising fury. "If they knew Riddick's blood was in her veins . . . what else would they do with her?"

Vaako passed a hand over his eyes. "They'll use her. Really use her. Not just symbolically. Use her to do what Riddick never did; complete the rituals that bind the souls of the newly taken to the Underverse." He took a deep breath. "And then they'd sacrifice her on the rock. If they can find it. It's been missing."

Aereon's eyes were sharp on Riddick. _The kid told her, _he realized grimly. _Fuck. Does she have the sense to keep her mouth shut? _


	21. Long Chapter

Two guards hauled Jack to her feet. _She's shorter than me, _Jack realized, dimly, for the first time. As if she knew what she was thinking, Dame Vaako's hard eyes glittered. "Oh, I'm sorry," the woman whispered, smiling. "I slipped."

Jack licked her dry lips. _Keep quiet, _Kyra hissed inside of her head, sounding more like Dame Vaako than she thought possible. _She'll be dead soon. _

_I'm going crazy, _Jack thought.

_No, it's just me. _

"You seem distracted, my dear," Dame Vaako stated, her eyes narrowing suspiciously.

Jack stared at her, and started to laugh. _If you only knew _-- "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just – I understand now. My place. What's going on. I've seen the Underverse. I understand."

Dame Vaako's expression was amazing. "Bring her," she ordered, curtly. Two burly solders hefted her to her feet, their hands hard enough to bruise.

* * *

They took her back to the med deck. They gave her a drink that made everything small and distant. Doctors tested and retested, muttering. Finally, they took her to a small room, wearing nothing but a paper robe.

Dame Vaako and her guards never left her side. As soon as the doctors were gone, she turned on Jack, a look of malicious triumph in her eyes.

"So you are Furyan."

Jack sighed. "Yeah."

The older woman pulled out a knife. Jack eyed it. "It's death to be a Furyan."

Jack started to laugh. "Yeah, well, don't let me stop you."

Dame Vaako hissed in frustration. "I can't kill you. Toal wants you."

"Sucks to be you then."

Dame Vaako's eyes narrowed. She made a decision. "Hold her, down." Dame Vaako commanded. Her men obeyed with alacrity. She pulled Jack's gown apart. "So tell me, Furyan. Do Furyan's bleed?"

Jack started to laugh. "Do you?"

She almost didn't see the knife move, it went so fast. Dame Vaako cut her on the top of the breast. Like everything else, the pain was distant. She kept laughing.

"You do bleed."

Jack shook her head, beyond answering. Dame Vaako tried a different tact, resting the knife at the tip of Jack's throat, letting it play down her chest almost seductively.

At some point, the pain got too close. Jack stopped laughing. Dame Vaako smiled, triumphant at last. Leaned down. Licked up some of the blood from the hollow of Jack's throat. "A Lord Marshal's blood is in your veins," she whispered, wonderingly. "We're going to have so much fun, you and I."

A communicator beeped. Dame Vaako answered it. "What? Yes. I am on my way." She deliberately laid the knife on Jack's belly. Fixed her men with a look.

"Play with her, clean her up, then take her to the priests. Don't be too gentle."

* * *

They weren't.

* * *

When they finished, they left. The doctor who had treated her before, Melissa, snuck in, lips tight. She quickly and furtively cleaned and sealed the cuts, gave Jack a shot of something that banished the pain and most of the everything else, replacing it with an echoing numbness.

At last, Dame Vaako's men came back, took her to silent attendants who stripped her and washed her and dressed her in a simple white dress. No shoes. No where to hide a weapon. Then priests poked and prodded and whispered worriedly. Despite Kyra raging at her, she could not muster any energy to care. Finally, they hung a gold necklace around her neck. One priest dabbed oil on her forehead.

The priests took her to the throne room, pushed her to her knees in front of the throne, next to a newly erected slab of grey stone. The stone was familiar. It looked like a thin slice of the dead stone Riddick had taken her to, an eternity before. For the first time since Melissa patched her up, she felt something.

Fear.

_Necros kill Furyans. _

_I was right. I'm going to bleed to death on a rock. _

Someone put a hand on her shoulder. She looked up, dazed, into Toal's smiling face. His smile faded as he scrutinized her. He addressed one of guards. "Why is she drugged?"

The blond guard, who had enjoyed making her whimper and squirm as he cleaned out her cuts, said nervously, "Once Dame Vaako learned she was Furyan, she ordered it. To avoid taking risks."

Toal gazed down on her, unexpectedly compassionate. Then his expression stiffened. "You're hurt?"

She met his eyes, confused. Licked her lips. Nodded.

"Who hurt you?"

_A trap? _She shook her head, but the compassion in his eyes seemed genuine. He crouched beside her, his voice was soft. "I'm so sorry. No harm was supposed to come to you." He glared at the guards. "No _more _harm will come to you, once we finish the ceremony. You will be treated as a sacred woman. You have my word as the Lord Marshal."

Somehow the words came through her dry lips. "Even though I'm Furyan?"

"Yes. We all began as something else, child." He touched her face, gently, and she could feel the tears beginning to well up in response to his sympathy.

_He believes, _Jack realized, dimly. _He believes he's doing the right thing; bringing a blessing to the universe. _

"_Stop having sympathy for the bad guys!" _Kyra was raging_. "He doesn't care about you. He just wants what Riddick had. You're just part of the victory." _

_What's a bad guy, Kyra?_

Kyra fell silent.

* * *

The Rhea docked quietly at the long forgotten airlock under the Necropolis. Riddick led them to the ancient altar. The light of their flashlights made it even greyer than it looked before.

He sat on the stone. "Conduit?"

"Yes, Riddick?"

"Not Lord Marshal?"

"That is unclear. Your title has been challenged."

"Report."

The voice was so old it sounded like it was dissolving to dust. "Toal is a faithful son. He will be crowned soon. Then they will attack the Illium empire."

"Jack?"

"She awaits in the throne room."

"Waits what?"

"The investiture ceremony."

"Will she be killed?"

"Toal says not."

"Pentheselia?"

"Awaiting execution for your murder."

"Anything I should know?"

"Your core access has been cancelled. Lord Vaako's core access has been cancelled."

"Reactivate it."

"Unable to comply."

"Why?"

"Unknown."

"Jack's access?"

"Uncompromised."

"Anything else I should know?"

"The army is restless. They do not like the rumors of your murder."

"Tell no one I am here. That is all."

"Yes, Riddick."

Somewhere early in all that, Vaako had fallen to his knees, reverent, before the stone. "The lost Holy of Holies. We thought its location had died with Lord Zhylaw."

"You're worse than Jack." His voice was a growl.

"You took her here? A woman?" Vaako's reverence was cracked by shock.

"Yeah. Why?"

"If the . . . old stories are true, the only . . . females ever brought here were brought to die." Vaako gave Aereon a convulsive look.

Aereon interrupted Riddick's increasingly dark thoughts. "You two should check what is going on upstairs. Can you find your own way out of the city if . . . I need to leave?"

She had kept her tone light, but there was a clear warning threaded through it. Riddick met her eyes. Nodded, slowly. "Do what you have to do," he said, quietly. Led Vaako away.

Finally, he returned to the conversation that had mysteriously infuriated him before. "Women bleed. But you love your wife."

"With all my heart. My biggest sin."

_I can't deal with this. I should kill that woman on sight. It shouldn't bother me that Vaako loves her. _

Toal had left Jack kneeling by the stone. When she leaned forward, she could press her forehead against it. The drugs were still giving everything an opiate haze, leaving her only dimly aware of the ceremony beginning to take shape around her. She could hear the words; order, mercy, blessings, blah blah blah.

She was also beginning to see things that couldn't be there; strange, shadowy shapes swirling around her. Waiting.

They emerged at last in the Lord Marshal's chambers. Riddick's weapons were mostly where he left them. Had to break a few locks. He outfitted them both, found some hooded robes. The stairway to the throne room was locked, and for some reason, someone really had taken the time to override the computer and door access of the two 'dead' men. They needed more information. They headed out through a door that could be forced open. Headed towards the common area.

Riddick suddenly stopped, headed in a new direction "Riddick!" Vaako hissed. "What are you doing?"

"Just wait."

Ten steps further, and Riddick was shoving a blond soldier up against a wall. Inhaled deeply. Eyes narrowed. "What the fuck did you do?" he growled.

The soldier quailed. "My god. My Lord Marshal."

"What the fuck did you do?"

The man just trembled. Riddick leaned close, took smelled the man. "Tell me."

The man's eyes slotted towards Lord Vaako. "What I was ordered to do."

"Where's Jack?"

"In the throne room."

Riddick stared hard at the guard. "Ordered by who?"

The man's eyes flitted again to Vaako. He shook his head. Riddick's hand was on the man's neck, and he did not resist when Riddick's fingers tightened, tightened, then broke his neck.

"Have you gone mad? What are you doing?" Vaako hissed.

Riddick's look could have curdled cheese. "Jack's blood."

"What about it?"

"He stinks of it."

Vaako blinked at him, rapidly. "You know what her blood smells like?"

"First thing I noticed about her." Riddick turned away, his step heavy. He was halfway down the hall before he added, his voice low, almost regretful, "You Necros ain't the only ones who hone in on blood."

* * *

Toal had mounted the steps again while Jack wasn't paying attention, too mesmerized by the thing swirling in the air around her, too anesthetized by the drugs. He pulled her to her feet, fairly gently, given the way her day was going. He bound her wrists together with a pair of manacles that looked just like the ones bound to the stone under Riddick's room. She shuddered. But Toal smiled down at her. He kissed her palm.

Then he sliced through the skin of his own left hand without flinching. His blood poured onto the rock. "By my blood, which has never mingled in the dark womb of life, I recommit our people to the eternal Underverse."

It sounded like a wedding vow.

He took her unresisting right hand, sliced through the skin. "By the blood of this childless woman, I abjure the flow of life and I recommit our people to the Underverse. We will pass through the Threshold."

He held Jack's hand, bleeding, in his own, affectionately. He pressed it against the stone, and for a dizzying moment, Jack felt as if she was being sucked down into a whirlpool. She whimpered and leaned into Toal, who's solidity was strangely comforting. He slipped his other arm around her.

"By renouncing life, we claim life eternal," Toal intoned. "We will wipe the tears from our eyes. We will pass through the Threshold."

The crowd was chanting, deep, words that made no sense. Jack could see the whirlpool unwinding. The dizzy disorientation was becoming intoxicating. She repressed a giggle.

"By renouncing death, we shall not die," Toal continued. "There will be no more death, and no more mourning or sadness or pain. Hail the Threshold."

The repressed giggles became laughter, dizzy, exultant. Hungry ghosts were swirling around her, lapping up her were calling out to her in a language she knew. She called back to them. The words sounded strange in her ears.

"_Your head is freaky," _Kyra accused. "_Snap out of it. It just got harder. You gotta get out of here cuffed and with your hand bleeding. You've got to get me to my body; damn it, I'm not resurrected yet!"_

Jack ignored her, beginning to babble unfamiliar words.

* * *

Riddick and Vaako slipped into the throne room, anonymous in their robes.

The fresh scent of Jack's blood almost undid him. Jack was there, swaying slightly in front of a stone that looked like it had been sliced off the one in the labyrinth under the Necropolis, Toal's arm around her.

He knew the white dress, the manacles, the necklace she was wearing. He'd taken them all off of a dead girl.

Toal was pinning her bleeding hand down on the rock. Riddick managed to edge his way around the back of the crowd to a place he could see her face. She was in the grasp of an ecstasy he actually resented. A look he wanted her to give him, not a dead piece of stone. Her eyes were dark, drugged, with fierce joy moving strangely underneath.

A whirlpool of shadows spun around her, no, not shadows, things. Like the things under the Necroverse. Like the things swirling around the old Lord Marshal. Had they always been there?

She was babbling . . .

One of the priests was leaning over the stone, whispering into her ear. "What do you see, child?"

"Hungry ghosts . . . spinning around the stone . . ."

"What stone, child?"

"Underneath . . . soaked with old blood . . . they are going through it . . . oh god . . . it's opening. The Threshold . . . "

She looked around the room. Her eyes were still glazed, drugged. She met Riddick's eyes for an instant, almost without recognition. But she mouthed a single word.

_"Wait."_ Jack's face, but the eyes that met his were more like Kyra's than her eyes had ever been. Then the swirling shadows resolved, and he could see that they were funneling up from the floor, spreading out, like they were . . ._leaving_?

One of the priests was hissing at Toal. "Sire, let us take her to the Quasi-Deads. See if she speaks true." Toal nodded, his eyes oddly soft. Two priests led her from the room. One had a ritual knife swinging from his belt. In her bare feet, she looked tiny. Toal settled back onto the throne.

_ I should go after her. Slip out the back, gather her up, steal a ship . . . _

_And be chased the rest of my life? _His vision shifted again, and he could see Jack's skin through the thin dress. Cut and deeply bruised. He could see Toal gazing after her, his eyes tender. Expectant.

_Not acceptable. _

Then he heard a soft noise, the sound of two bodies hitting the ground. The sound of bare feet running. He smiled. _That's my girl. _

He gave Vaako a look, suddenly realizing that this true believer might have a reason to go after Jack; to stop her. Vaako met his eyes. "You with me, Vaako?" Riddick mouthed, quietly.

"'Till Underverse comes, my lord."

"Even if that's today?"

Vaako twitched. Looked at his wife. Looked at Riddick. Leaned close. "I love my wife. You let me keep her, I'm with you even after the Underverse comes."

"I can live with that."

*

The priests were old and fat. Suddenly grateful Kyra had made her practice this move, Jack kicked out the knee of the one holding her. Seized the other's knife and slit both throats. She was running down the hall before the last body hit the ground.

* * *

Riddick pushed back the hood of his robe. Stalked forward, Vaako at his back.

"You're in my chair, Toal."

Toal jerked, shocked. But he rallied well. "Mine now, Riddick. It's time for you to cross over."

"Been there. Done that. Back now."

Then they were fighting, a whirling, spinning fight among whirling, screaming ghosts.

* * *

Despite everything, everything, aching, and some things bleeding, Jack made it to the little chapel Riddick had built at a dead run. The door slid back to her hand.

Kyra's stasis tube was still operational. Jack's heart began to beat a little more normally. She opened the tube, disengaged the stasis field. Gazed at the corpse, still warm.

_ Now what do I do?_

"_Kiss me, you idiot. Remember, that's how you wake up princesses." _

_You're a princess? Am I a princess?_

"_Do it!"_

_On one condition. You help Riddick. _

A sharp laugh. _"You got it. I was right about that, by the way. He's not dead."_

_I noticed. _Feeling absurd, Jack leaned down and kissed the corpse softly on the lips. Something drained out of her. Time hung, until at last the girl in the box rose, triumphant. She shook her long hair, let out a whoop and crowed, "I'm back, baby."

Jack puddled to the floor, completely spent. Far below, something rumbled, darkly. Kyra leapt lightly from the box. The smile on her face was fierce, malicious, triumphant. "You did good, sis. Come on." She got a shoulder under her, half carried her out the door to a weapons' locker. The rumbling intensified.

Jack stared at the door, uncomprehending. She could feel herself bleeding again. With an exasperated snort Kyra grabbed her uncut hand, shoved it hard onto the lock panel. The door slid back silently. She pulled her inside, settled her against a wall. Started pulling things off the shelves.

"Hold your hands out." Jack did, slowly. Kyra had a laser cutting tool. Sliced right through small connector, leaving the cuffs on her wrists, no longer bound together.

"Stay here. I'll be back for you. And kid – you did good."

"What are you going to do?"

Kyra hefted a piece of equipment with a feral grin. "Use this to blow up that rock down below. Don't worry, I'll put it on a timer. Once that rock's blown, it should snap the connection to the Underverse, and blow this place. After I set it, I'll collect you two, and we're gonna live long and prosper in a universe without Necromongers."

"What about everyone else here?"

"Everyone else dies, Jack." Kyra strapped on a blaster, grabbed a light source.

"Wait – there's a damping field in the throne room. You won't be able to use that."

"I known, sweetie. Fought there before, remember? Now you, stay here." She kissed Jack's forehead, took off at a dead run. The door slid shut behind her. Jack stared after her open mouthed.

_Like I can even walk. Resurrecting the dead is hard work. Why didn't anyone ever tell me how hard this was going to be? _

Jack sat still for an eternity, exhausted.

_ Kyra sent the mercs after me. _

The thought was paralyzing.

_I'm being paranoid. Why would she do that?_

_ To find him. Her Prophecy Boy. The one who could get her vengeance. _

_ No time for this. No time. _

_ Next you'll be thinking she sabotaged the Hunter-Grazner too. _

_ Fuck. She'd been looking for him for two years at that point. _How hard would it be to hire someone to fuck up a navsys?

She stared at the weapons on the walls, lovingly arranged on shelves.

_ Was she telling the truth when she took me to Arden? Or was it just to get me out of the way? Did I hate Riddick because of her? _

_Can I trust her? _

_ Weapons. Easier to trust if I'm armed. _

She looked harder at the room. It wasn't just full of weapons. Her eyes fell on battle armor. Some of it had built in EMT kits, with nanites to repair injured soldiers. She struggled one down.

It was too big, but it smoothly conformed itself to her body. She felt needles enter, energy flowing back into her veins.

_Not just nanites. Stimulants. This thing is pumping me full of them. _More rumbling.

She had a sudden image of herself bound to an altar, a knife heading to her throat. An image of herself, tossing dirt on Riddick's corpse_. _She shuddered. Started pulling down weapons.

_This place is going to blow up. Do I care?_

Sudden image of Pentheselia smiling at her, promising protection. Sudden image of Toal saying she was going to be executed. Thoughts racing. Not good. Found a knap sack. Filled it with as many weapons as she could carry. Got the computer to tell her where Pen was. Took off.


	22. No, Really, Weren't You Dead?

_I should have brought her with me, _Kyra thought as she dodged through the corridors. _She can open all these damn doors. _

Riding in Jack's head had a lot of advantages. She knew this place as well as Jack did. Kyra wondered for an instant if Jack had studied the schematics on her own, or if she really had managed to plant the idea in the girl's head.

Kyra arrived at the Lord Marshal's chambers. Slipped in the service entrance. _Piece of cake. God, Lord Marshals would have been easy to kill. _

_ Yeah, but if you'd kill him quietly, so what? Only take his place if it's public. So you pick an heir who's squishy. Like Vaako. _

_ Helped kill the last guy._

_ Only when Riddick forced his hand. _

She slid through the rooms, found the right door. It opened easily. With the light, it was trivially easy to find her way. _Riddick really liked keeping Jack in the dark. _She snorted.

_Well, he was a little insecure about relationships. _

_ You're already thinking of them in the past tense. _

_ They'll be dead soon. We all will. _

Crawling through the tunnel with a light was hard. She finally gave up, turned it off, groped through the darkness. Far faster than Jack remembered it, she was at the drop. She turned the light back on, leapt down.

_"Just fall. I'll catch you." _She could hear Riddick's voice, some stray memory of Jack's. She grimaced. _He really did do a number on that kid's head. _

_More than you did? _ _You followed her for years. You made her think you were family. You put her in danger. You took her identity. All to get Riddick's attention. _

_All to save the universe. _

_Right. _She was running now, feet pounding, through the surreal forest of columns. _Jack was right. These do look like dead trees. _

_ Poor kid. _

_

* * *

  
_

All of the Necroverse was in a flutter, and most people were very carefully not seeing Jack stumbling through the trembling halls.

Pentheselia was in a cell crammed full of Illium soldiers, and the guards were nowhere to be seen. Jack dumped the bag of weapons on a console, got close to the bars. "Hey, princess."

The princess smiled at her, through cracked and swollen lips. "Hey, pet. To what do I owe the honor?"

"What happened when they took you to the Quasi-Deads?"

"I don't know what that means."

Jack blinked at her. Why had she asked that_? Brain not working. Right. If they really thought she'd killed Riddick, they would have done that, wouldn't they? But she could be lying._ She decided to try the direct approach. "Did you kill Riddick?"

"No. I swear. I didn't."

Jack swallowed. "You need to leave. It's all coming down. Or something. Soon." She trailed off, unable to sort her thoughts_. Blood loss and stimulants?_ Jack shook her head. Walked backwards to the guard station, Pentheselia and her silent soldiers watching her carefully. Placed her hand on the panel, felt it surge to life. Opened all of the cells.

The soldiers were no fools. They were out of the cells instantly, and hands were gently but firmly taking weapons from her. Pentheselia was issuing orders. Jack sagged into a chair.

"What's the situation?"

"Riddick's back. Not dead. He and Toal are fighting in the throne room. This place is going to rip itself apart."

"He sent you?"

"No . . . I ran. It's been . . . hard . . . since he left. I could barely walk, let alone fight. I'd just be a weakness. A hostage."

She regretted the words as soon as they were out of her mouth. But Pentheselia just gave her a look, distributed weapons. "You opened the cell doors. Can you open more doors? Get us more weapons? Get us to the throne room? "

"Yeah. You'll . . . " her voice trailed off. "You'll _help _him?"

"Toal wins this, it's total war. Riddick wins, we have a chance to deal. I swore to protect you, and I will, but you have to come with me." Her eyes fell on the shackles still around her wrists. Suddenly, Pentheselia was pulling at her clothes, staring hard. "Good holy mother, what happened to you?"

Jack blinked back sudden tears. "There are people who didn't like Riddick much. Thought they'd take it out on me."

"Give me a name."

"Dame Vaako . . ."

"She is a dead woman. You have my word. Robert!" A large man came forward. "She's under my protection, and I place her under yours. Everyone who has a weapon, take position around the rest. Let's find us a weapons locker, boys and girls."

* * *

Kyra stalked the ancient stone. Someone was there. Her shiving hand was itching. She managed to hold back until she knew more.

_Aereon_. The Elemental bitch. Emissary. Whatever. _She's trying to break the stone, _Kyra realized. The older woman had hit it with something hard, repeatedly, managed to scratch the surface. But she was breathing hard, and Kyra was pretty sure that was her heartbeat she could hear echoing through the strange chamber.

She approached carefully. "Hey," she hailed.

Aereon whirled. "Kyra!"

"You know me?"

"Of course, child. The dead woman who was pretending to be Jack."

Kyra hesitated. "I got better." Her fingers twitched over the timer.

"I expected you would. You were sending young Jack dreams, weren't you?"

Kyra glared at her. _This woman knows too god damn much. _ "Are you trying to break the stone?"

"Yes. Can you help?"

"You bet." Kyra collapsed by the stone, started setting the charges. "Crow bars not getting it done, you know. Why didn't you just use explosives?"

"The Necromongers did not leave me any thing I could use as weapon. But I see you came back from the underworld . . . well armed."

Kyra's lips quirked. "Yeah. So to speak." She twisted the timer for five minutes. "When this goes, it's gonna go big. You got a way out of here?"

Aereon's eyes were hard on the timer. "Yes. I have a ship. Do you need a ride?"

Kyra froze. _Shit. _She'd planned on standing guard over the charge, watching as it went, dying . . .

Dying again. _Shit shit shit. _"Look – do you know how to use a blaster?"

Aereon nodded, solemnly. Kyra tossed her one. Made a decision. Reset the timer for 90 minutes.

"Wait as long as you can. Stand guard. Anyone comes, kill them, or just set the bomb. I'm going to try to--" She stopped, swallowed hard. "I'm gonna try to make up for a few things.

Aereon nodded, understanding in her eyes. It pissed Kyra off. "And if you fuck up, I've already come back from the dead once," Kyra growled.

The older woman just smiled. "Godspeed, my child."

Kyra flung herself back up the tunnels, meaning to take advantage of this gift from the gods to gather up Jack, maybe Riddick, and get the hell off this station before it blew.

Trouble was, Jack was gone. Gritting her teeth, Kyra went to find the next best thing.

* * *

Toal and Riddick were still circling. A few of Toal's minions lurked at the edges. Several minion corpses were at the edges of the circle. Kyra leapt in, easily, spear in one hand, sword in the other. She gave Riddick a quick peck on the cheek.

"Miss me, honey?"

Without looking at her, he hissed, "Where the fucking hell did you come from?"

"From fucking hell. Your Underverse. Jack brought me back with her. May be hope for our girl yet." She speared one of Toal's men, easily. Caught Vaako with an eye. "Hey, old guy. When shall _we _three meet again anyway?"

Vaako gave her a heart broken look, kept fighting.

Riddick spared her a glance. "Where is she?"

"She wandered off. Amazing she could walk at all, after what they did to her."

He groaned back in his throat. He and Toal met with a flurry of blows. Kyra neatly speared a flunky.

When they were close again, he hissed to her, "when this is over, you and me gonna have a talk, little girl."

"Whatever."

* * *

The Illium started to move in good formation. Jack stumbled, and found herself being carried along. Before she knew what was happening, someone was pressing her hand on a lock panel. People were arming themselves around her. She slid to the floor.

She managed to catch Pentheselia's attention. "Look, I really think this place is going to go . . . I think it's all coming down. You have to leave. We all have to leave."

"When?"

"I don't know . . . soon. I brought someone back from the Underverse. Oh god, I have to tell Riddick."

"You're the only one who can open these doors?"

"Yeah." The ground shook. An alarm sounded.

Pentheselia gave her a measuring look. "Robert. Take the west dock, where our ships are. Then use her access to contact the rest of our people, the ones who converted. Tell them . . . tell them what ever gets them into the ships, gets them out of here. We'll be there soon." The big man saluted, swung her up in his arms. Half the men followed them.

_Crap, _thought Jack. _This just keeps on happening. I never got drugged and carried around before I came here. Why does this keep happening? _She started to laugh, hysterically, burying her face into this stranger's shoulder.

* * *

Kyra was a dream to have at his side. They fought like they were one person. Spinning whirling death, together. The throne room was beginning to tremble in earnest.

Something was going on at the edges of the room. Pentheselia. Her soldiers. Could he trust them? They were fighting Toal's men. Trust for now.

He'd gutted Toal fast enough, had made careful note the man's weaknesses long ago, but the room was stacked full of people who hated him. They just kept coming.

Then it was all over. Pentheselia marched over the dead bodies, saluted, ironically. "Jack sent me. Says it's time to pack."

"What?" Kyra shoved in front of him, facing Pentheselia. "Who are you? I told Jack to stay put. Where is she?"

Pentheselia gave her a polite look. Switched her attention back to Riddick. "Jack's with my people. We are taking the West Dock. She said this place was going to rip itself apart."

Kyra turned around, almost pressed up against him. He was uncomfortably aware of how much she was like Jack, down to the smell. She was absolutely furious. Furious with Jack? Something wasn't right. "Look – you go ahead. We'll find another way off." Kyra was quivering, talking fast. Riddick stared down at her. _Something isn't fucking right . . . _

"Riddick, what do you want to do?" Pentheselia's voice was calm. He took a step away from both of them.

"I want Jack." His voice was flat. "Then I'll decide. Vaako --" He looked around.

Vaako and his wife were talking, their low, urgent voices so quiet, they had been lost. "Vaako!" he said, louder. Both looked up. Both came over. Vaako protectively in front of his wife.

Riddick was keenly aware that both Pentheselia and Kyra were staring at Dame Vaako. _She tortured Jack. She probably plotted against me. She's the love of Vaako's life. What the fuck am I going to do about this? _

_Later. _"You're with me, Vaako. Come on."

Vaako hesitated, then nodded, reluctantly. Kept a hand on his wife. Riddick gave Kyra and Pentheselia a warning look. They swept out of the throne room, towards the space dock. Where Jack should be waiting. Wanted to talk to her before deciding what should happen to Belinda Vaako.

Abruptly, he realized there were things to do. "I want communications back, Belinda."

Dame Vaako gave him a strange look; he'd never used her first name before. "Of course you do, sire. But I had nothing to do with that."

More and more people were following them now, oddly enough. There were the sounds of a confrontation ahead. Where Jack was. He picked up the pace. "Whatever. Just fix it. And have a doctor sent to the West Dock. Melissa. Tell her to find Jack."

Dame Vaako nodded, seemingly polite and ever glad to be of use, and spoke into her wrist unit.

They passed a few bodies, almost silently. Pentheselia's troops were well disciplined, and no one questioned the Lord Marshal. A small group of Necromonger soldiers were manning the doors to the West Dock, standing off against a much larger force of Illium soldiers. An impasse. He couldn't see Jack anywhere, though the smell of her was there. Or maybe that was Kyra. _Fuck. _The rumbling had stopped, but there was a fine dust in the air, a smell of ozone.

"Stand down." Riddick's voice was loud enough to cut through metal. The Necromonger soldiers at the door gave him a strangled look, obeyed. They pushed into the dock, the Illium soldiers already swarming up into their ships, the Necromongers following uneasily.

Then he finally saw Jack, half carried by a large Illium soldier towards one of the ships. He shoved through.

For a moment he thought the man didn't recognize him, was going to fight him. _What the hell has Jack been doing? _

_Maybe what she thought she had to do, to stay alive? _The thought made him feel extraordinarily uncomfortable. He shoved it aside. Jack gave him a strange, hopeful, sad smile. The man put her down.

"I think I broke your Necropolis."

"Guess I was done with it anyway."

She laughed, and wrapped her arms around him for a surprisingly fierce hug. After a moment, he hugged her back.

Then someone was tugging on his sleeve. He turned, meaning to tell who ever it was to fuck off, but it was Melissa, the doctor, her eyes large. "Apologies, Lord Marshal." She turned from him, focused completely on Jack.

"You have to take off the battle-suit."

"Why?"

"Jack, it's designed to keep you alive for a battle, not long term. You need rest. You needed rest before--" The doctor gave Riddick a strangled look, took a deep breath, kept going. "You needed rest before you put it on. It could kill you."

Jack closed her eyes. Slowly, she removed the suit, let it drop to the ground. Looked like she was going to drop after it. "Okay. Oh boy. Dizzy." She leaned against Riddick in a heartbreakingly childish way. He closed his eyes, wishing, not for the first time, he could roll back the last six years, start over . . .

The moment of stillness passed with the arrival of Lord Vaako; a pinched look on his face, his wife close behind. "Sire, our access has not been restored. Can your . . . lady here unlock the ships?"

Riddick stared at him for a moment, not comprehending. But Jack was pulling away. "Lead on, Gunga Din," she hailed, gamely. Vaako took her arm with a curiously formal gesture, began leading her toward one of the larger ships. Dame Vaako trailing behind. _They sure seem to get along, _he thought, somewhat grimly. _We'll be playing happy family in no time at this rate. _ Stared after them, feeling like he was forgetting something. Someone was tugging at his shoulder, trying to get his attention. Someone always wanted his attention. Since he got here. He was going to be so fucking glad to be away from here.

_Kyra_. _I'm forgetting Kyra._ He looked around. Kyra was easing towards Dame Vaako, amidst the tumult. _Dame Vaako._ _Happy families with her around? _She was a problem. She was a real problem. _A problem Kyra might be solving. _He glanced at Vaako, who seemed oblivious in his solicitude for Jack.

Belinda Vaako's voice cut through all the noise. "I saw you die."

"Yeah," Kyra replied. Stabbed her in the belly, ripped up. "And now I've seen you die."

Dame Vaako's lifeless body crumpled to the floor. Riddick was there, paralysis gone now that the deed was done. He found himself across the room, yanking Kyra away. "What the fuck are you doing?"

"She tortured Jack," Kyra hissed, circling him. "She had her raped. I was in her head the whole time. You really think I was going to let that woman live?" She was backing away from Riddick, who was following her slowly, away from Vaako, poor Vaako, cradling his wife's body, crying silent tears.

* * *

When Vaako had let go, Jack had almost fallen. Dame Vaako was dead. _The woman I wouldn't eat. _Jack shivered. As if in response, the building quaked. _It's all coming down. Oh god, we have to get out of here. Everyone has to get out of here. _Kyra and Riddick were circling each other.

_Whatever. They'll work it out. _She put her hand on Vaako's shoulder. He stared up at her with tear stained eyes. "I'm sorry, Vaako."

He grabbed her hand.

"Look, we have to go . . . and anyone who stays dies."

He looked at her blankly. It was heartbreaking.

"You need to give the evacuation order, Vaako," Jack said quietly.

"What?"

"Evacuation. This place is coming down."

He nodded, slowly. "Most won't leave."

"I know. But we can give them an option." She led him to a communication panel. It hummed to life under her hand.

Vaako smiled at her. Touched her face gently, and gave the order. He lifted his wife's body in his arms, started to walk back toward the Necropolis. _To die, _Jack thought, dimly, wishing she had enough strength left to stop this.

Then Kyra broke away from Riddick, flung herself at Vaako's back, furious, a knife upraised.

But Jack stepped in between them. Kyra's knife slid into her side, and Jack fell hard.


	23. Rising like Nemesis

Riddick rose like Nemesis, and smashed Kyra down_. _He raised a booted foot to crush the life out of her.

"Riddick," Jack whispered.

He hesitated, dropped to his knees beside her. Vaako was shouting, but he couldn't understand what he was saying. People were running past them. "Kid. Stay with me, kid."

She blinked up at him. "Won't go far." Started to laugh.

Riddick was dimly aware that Vaako's hands were on Jack's side; the blood bubbling up around them. The young doctor collapsed beside them. "Move," she said, tersely. Shoved him away from the wound. Started doing something.

"Riddick," Jack said, again. "Don't kill her. She's . . . family."

"She tried to kill you."

"If I die, she's all you got. If she dies, I'll never know . . . " Her eyes rolled back and she went limp.

_Know why she sent the mercs after you, _he finished for her. But he knew why already. And it pissed him off. Pissed him the hell off.

The Necroverse was roaring, collapsing. Time to go.

* * *

Jack was dreaming she was a little girl again. Long before she had got on the Hunter-Grazner, long before her foster parents had died, she was playing on the beach next to a roaring sea. Veins of colored clay snaked over the sands, as if left behind by snakes winding their ways back into that great ocean. Jack had mounded the sand into an enormous hemisphere and was sculpting a world, making towns and mountains and rivers and happy families of mud people, making a happy houses for her happy mud people, making happy towns for the houses, running back and forth from the different snaky trails of colored mud for the perfect colors, and then she was dizzy, backing away, and there were giant octopi frolicking in the waves, and she was making things as fast as she could and she was covered in mud and it had gotten onto her face and under her heavy bracelets, and it was raining and her mud world was expanding and –

A beautiful woman walked out of the waves, beautifully, smiled down at her. "Hello, little girl."

Jack stared at her. She was completely dry. "Hi! How did you do that? Where did you come from?"

The woman answered half of the question. "I've always been here. Just waiting. What are you doing?"

"Making things."

"I see. Do you know what you're making?"

Jack shrugged. "Stuff."

"You're making worlds."

Jack giggled. "Making worlds of mud?"

"That's what the better worlds are made of. Would you make something for me?"

"Sure."

"Make me a body?"

Jack concentrated. Found the best clay she could find, molded it carefully into something that looked as much like the woman as she could. Somewhat shyly, she handed it to her. "Here."

The woman took it wonderingly, stroked its clay hair. "Nicely done. I'm Shirah, by the way."

"I'm Jack."

"I know . . . Those are nice bracelets. You should never take them off."

Jack shrugged, suddenly shy under the woman's intense gaze. "Someone gave them to me. I don't remember who."

Shirah smiled, beautifully. "They look good on you." She crouched, looked closely at Jack. "I didn't think it would be you. Maybe it shouldn't have been you." She ruffled Jack's hair affectionately, regretfully. "But he stopped listening to me after he became Emperor. He was always a flawed vessel."

"Huh?"

"Nothing. Maybe it's better that it was you. Better to have an essentially good person instead . . . and you were at the right place at the right time. That has to mean something. Would you do something else for me?"

"Okay."

"There's something buried here a long time ago, up the beach. A door to a . . . cave. Would you help me dig it up?"

"Wouldn't it be full of water?"

"Only when the tide comes in." Shirah led her up the beach and they started to dig through the sand and clay and rocks that later, Jack would recognize as bones. After an eternity, they uncovered a stone disk. With considerable effort, Shirah managed to dislodge it, uncovering a hole that seemed to go all the way down.

Jack knelt at the edge. "It's dark down there."

"Yes." Jack heard the sorrow in Shirah's voice. Then something shoved her, and she was falling.

* * *

Jack woke. She was in a bed in a small medical bay. A man was sitting nearby, reading quietly. Vaako. "Hey."

He smiled, tiredly, a soft look in his eyes. "The sleeper awakes."

"How long have I been out?"

"A few days. How do you feel?"

"I feel . . . good. Strong." She looked down at the needle in her arm, again. "I'm in a hospital bed. Again. Is this going to keep happening the rest of my life?"

His voice was warm, but serious. "We're at the cusp of a new world. You . . . you are in a position to help make that world. So it is up to you. My lady."

_New worlds of mud. _She gestured at the needle. "You, uh, help me with this?"

He looked at her oddly for a moment. Then he shrugged, helped her pull the needle out of her arm and bandage it. She made her way to the bathroom, returned cautiously.

"So, is it just . . . you and me?"

He laughed. "No, my lady. There's a crew. And we are in a fairly sizable flotilla of . . . our ships. And Riddick and Kyra are here."

The words hung in the air. She rubbed her eyes. "Riddick and Kyra? What are they doing?"

"As usual, fighting. The doctor was exhausted; I volunteered to watch over you. You have the only sound proofed room on the ship." It was almost an apology.

"What are they fighting about?"

"You, usually. Me, sometimes. What to do. Where to go. Whether to go together."

"She tried to kill you."

"Yes."

"Do you know why?"

Vaako shrugged. "I think she was angry about the evacuation order."

_So it's my fault. _Jack rubbed her eyes. Then she fingered the heavy manacles locked on her wrists, half expecting to see them covered in mud. "I still have these on."

"We tried to take them off but they seem to have fused to your flesh. . ."

These words joined the others hanging in the air, pregnant with meaning she did not understand.

"Fused." _Great. Metal from beyond the grave. Locked around me. Marking me . . ._

Vaako's voice was quiet. "We tried to remove them surgically but you started screaming. Riddick . . . reacts badly when you scream."

"Oh." She thought about that. "Where are we?"

"Still in orbit around the . . . event horizon. The threshold. Whatever it is."

"Why?"

"You don't remember?"

"No."

"Moving away . . .seemed to cause you pain. And what ever is happening . . . stretched out like it was trying to come with us. The Illium gave us this little ship so we could stay near enough that you weren't in pain."

_Does that make sense? Figure it out later. _Her voice dropped, soft. "How many survived?"

"Millions."

"Out of how many?"

"Many, many millions."

"Do you think many died . . . who didn't want to?"

He sighed. "I don't know. Maybe. Many people thought the Underverse had come. They weren't going to leave at the cusp of their ascension to immortality."

"Oh." _But you did. _She found that voice was small. "Why are we on an Illium ship?"

"Kyra wouldn't get on a Necromonger ship . . . and Riddick wouldn't leave her."

"Wasn't he about to kill her?"

"Yes. He still might." He hesitated. "My lady."

"Why do you keep calling me that?"

Vaako's gaze was intense. "There are those who say you should be the new . . . spiritual head of our people."

"Good god. Why?"

"You brought a soul back from the dead, clothed it in flesh. And now . . . the threshold. We think it is opening. It seems like a new solar system is coalescing around it, beneath us. And you seem to be tied to it."

_A new world. It really happened. I didn't just dream it. _"I want to see."

"Riddick will want to know you are awake."

"Let me get my bearings first. I'm getting real tired of this Sleeping Beauty thing that keeps happening to me around him."

Vaako's lips twitched and the intensity of his gaze softened. He helped her out of bed. She was grateful to find she was wearing pajamas and not the bloody dress. Someone had even bathed her. _Riddick? Kyra? Vaako? _Suddenly she felt uncomfortable again. "Do I have any real clothes?"

He gave her a strange look. "I'll see what I can do." He left quietly, returning almost apologetically with a very simple outfit. She put it on gratefully, let him lead her to the bridge. A woman was piloting. She leapt up, the same look of worship in her eyes that Jack had seen so many times directed at Riddick that she looked around for him. She looked at the co-pilot's seat for a moment, then sat down, for the first time ever in a ship with Riddick or Kyra in it, in a pilot's chair. Even though they both were adamant she should learn to pilot, somehow, neither ever let her drive.

The swirling maelstrom was astonishing. Light crackled across it, and colors, and shapes. Knowing, somehow, it was the right thing to do, she moved the ship through the clouds.

Before too long, they were hailed. Vaako answered. It was Aereon. "Praise the goddess. You did it."

"Yeah. About that. What did I do?"

"Meet me at the threshold. I'll tell you what I know."

"On the third planet?" _How do I know there's a third planet? _

"That's where you put it, child." She smiled, cut the connection.

_Oh god. _

The cockpit was silent as Jack thought about whether she was awake. Decided she probably was.

As if reading her mind, Riddick rumbled from behind her, almost accusingly, "You're awake." She spasmed. Turned the chair. Felt the urge to stand up, yield him the position. Resisted it. Gave him a smile, instead.

"Hey."

"Hey." Kyra pushed passed him. "You're awake. God. I thought I killed you."

Jack stared at her. "Yeah. I thought you did too." She turned back to the view screen. Her eyes were prickling, and she was damn tired of crying. Riddick's hand was on her shoulder. She wasn't sure how she felt about that.

The maelstrom parted. A solar system unfolded beneath them, the planet beneath them sparkling like a jewel in the night. "Wow. Did you do that?" Kyra asked, with artificial brightness.

"Someone had to."

She landed the ship without incident. Walked out into a new world, Riddick at her back, Kyra asserting the right to walk at her side. She missed the days she walked with Riddick holding her hand. Repressed the urge to grab for it.

Somehow, Aereon really had known to land at the same place. They exchanged a look, but no words. They walked to a cave, angled sharply down, like a hole she had dug in the sand, like a hole she had fallen down.

"I don't want to go in there," Jack said, her voice small again.

"It's your path, child. The next part of finishing this." New voice. A voice she knew from dreams she wish she had never dreamed. "Shirah?"

The woman smiled at her, beautifully. "Jack. Welcome." She took Jack's hands, warmly, caressing the metal bands in a way that made her very uncomfortable.

"You're real?"

"I was. I am. Thank you. I lived a long time in the secret places, guiding those who would listen." She gave Riddick another beautiful smile. "Hail Lord Marshal."

"I'm getting sick of that name."

"It is a rather nihilistic title for a Furyan." Shirah had not released Jack's hands, though her attention was completely on Riddick. "Still, you fulfilled the prophecy. You killed the last Lord Marshal."

"Aren't I the last Lord Marshal?"

Shirah smiled. "In a way. To be the real Lord Marshal, you must," her voice took on a mock-heroic tone "Cross the Threshold of Death and Return. Which you did, on the sands of Crematoria. But it wasn't their threshold."

"Doesn't that make me the Lord Marshal? Or Jack?" Kyra's voice was acerbic. "We did that."

"No woman--" Vaako started. Took a deep breath. "It is taught that no woman can so serve. That they can not be both the gateway for life to enter the universe, and the conduit for life to leave it for its eternal reward."

"Haven't we always been?" Shirah said, quietly. "Womb and tomb. But you are right. The Necromonger religion cannot accommodate a female Lord Marshal. Let alone two of them. Which brings us to the unexpected problem Jack has given to us."

"What problem?" Riddick's voice was quiet, but there was a beginning of a threat implicit.

"There should not be Necromongers. They should have passed from the universe with the Necropolis, an abomination run its course. But because of Jack --" her beautiful face twisted slightly, "because Jack showed mercy, there are millions of Necromongers in orbit around this world, landing on this world. This world that should be Furya reborn. Thus, we have a problem."

Aereon, who had been quiet all this time, whispered. "'I will give into your hands cities you did not build, vineyards you did not plant, fields you did not sow . . .'" Shirah gave her a sharp look.

"Yes. Something like that."

"You don't want to share this world you did not build with others."

"Not with those people. They killed our people."

"Toal said that he forgave the Furyans." Jack's voice was very distant. She tried, discretely, to pull her hands away. Shirah would not let her. "What did we do?"

Shirah shrugged. "A hundred generations ago, we were one people. We went our own way. They never forgave us."

"They never forgave us, but they didn't do anything until a prophecy said a Furyan would kill a Lord Marshal?"

Shirah gave her a sharp look, this time, as if annoyed that someone else was telling the story. "Some say there was a war. It was a long time ago."

Jack's voice was slow. "Furyans . . . they thought they were a chosen people? And the Necromongers were willing to let anyone in."

"Enough. Child. You have given us a great service. But you also failed us. I pronounce your penance. To walk through the Threshold bring back Furyans trapped in the nightmare of the Underverse. Because you have walked in both worlds, because you have bled on the rock, because you have the bonds of the Underverse around your wrist, you can bring them back. To finish our vengeance."

_Because I was there at the right time. Fuck. _

Riddick interrupted her thoughts. "Right." The threat implicit in Riddick's voice had become explicit. "I'm going to let her do that."

"It's not your decision, Riddick." The force in Jack's voice surprised her. Shirah even dropped her hands.

He turned on her slowly. "You don't think so?"

"I don't. I might not go. I'm done being anyone's instrument of anything. But it's not your call."

Shirah broke in, seeming a little flustered. "There is no need to decide tonight. Let me show you," she gave Aereon a look "a city you did not build."

She lead them to a beautiful house in a beautiful town, full of food. _A very familiar house . . . _Ships were beginning to land, to Shirah's obvious annoyance. Vaako was quietly taking command of what appeared to be a growing settlement. A heavily armed settlement. Someone brought them food and wine. They ate at a pavilion. Everything was awkward.

Jack finally took charge. "Okay. Kyra. You're not my sister, are you?"

"Not . . . literally. In a way. We're both Furyan."

"So why do you look like me?"

"No, why do you _smell _like her?" Riddick's eyes were intense. "That's what got me. You _smell _like her."

Kyra looked away, staring into a nearby forest. "Had myself altered."

"Why? Why do all this?" Jack's voice broke. "Why . . . send people after me?"

Kyra looked far older, sitting in the shadows. "You know they tried to slaughter our people. Not many survived. My parents were among the few. We've been looking for Furyans, bringing them together. Trying to survive. Trying to find someone who fit the prophecy. Someone like Riddick.

"We found you when you were about eight years old. But you seemed safe and healthy, and we didn't really have a better place to take you, so we left you where you were. Paid someone to keep an eye on you. Then . . . that merc caught Riddick near your planet. A merc who didn't have a ship, for some stupid reason, so he was transporting him by commercial passenger transport. And the solution was so fucking perfect, it was like the gods liked us again.

"We made sure that ship got routed to your world, and that you got on board. We had our guy bribe the captain into reprograming the navigation computer to take the ship slightly out of the shipping lanes to someplace we could extract you both. There should have been an automatic course correction that took the ship back – late, but safe. By the time anyone else woke up from cryo, we'd be months gone.

"But something went wrong. You left the shipping lanes parsecs early, on a different vector than we gave the captain."

Jack closed her eyes.

Kyra was almost pleading. "You should have been safe. Space is so empty; it's amazing you passed through a solar system, let alone fell into the gravity well of a planet. It took us forever to find you.

"By the time we got to the crash site, no one was left alive on that planet. We thought maybe someone had escaped in a shuttle, but we weren't sure.

Kyra took a deep breath. "I'm so sorry."

"Go on." Riddick's voice betrayed nothing.

"Couple of years later, we finally found Jack. Everyone we had was practically on the other side of the galaxy, and we knew enough about you to be worried you might bolt, disappear, and both you and our best link to Riddick would disappear again. We were desperate. The Necros were getting geometrically stronger. So we took a gamble. We tipped off some mercs. Told them to rough you up a bit. Thought he might show up to rescue you. Figured we could arrange it to be rescuing you as he showed up, nice frame to make a case for him to join us. We also figured the Helion Navy would show up eventually to rescue you if we worse came to worse. They take care of their children.

"Only things got out of hand. The mercs figured out that the old guy wasn't looking for you; hadn't even put out a report you were missing. They figured they could do anything to you, and the harsher it was, the more likely it was that Riddick would show.

"By the time we figured it out, got you out . . . you were badly hurt. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

Kyra gazed at her longingly, as if she was waiting for Jack to forgive her. Jack wouldn't meet her eyes.

"So we extracted you, patched you up, took you back, kept watch. We figured Riddick would be pulled back; you were almost certainly the only Furyan woman he ever met. But when Riddick didn't show, even after -- I decided to risk myself. Get you someplace safe, take your place. Atonement, I guess. And it worked. Sort of. He found me. Took him long enough." She laughed. No one joined in.

"But it didn't work like I planned. It was too late; the Necros were there. I was sure Riddick was dead on the sands. So I went with them. Thought maybe I could kill the Lord Marshal. I never really believed in prophecies anyway. Well, you know the rest." She trailed off, awkwardly.

There was silence for a long time. Finally, Jack met her eyes. "Now what?"

After a pause, Aereon answered. "There are different ways this can play out. You may stay here, defend this land as your own." Riddick snorted. Aereon gave him a look. "You realize, my son, if you get caught again, you're not just up for murder. You're up on genocide charges. Crimes against humanity. Consider the benefits of sovereign immunity."

He just snorted again.

"You can finish what Kyra's people started. Find the Furyans who survived. Maybe try to create some sort of peace here between two warrior peoples. Someone will be needed to guard the Threshold, after all, since Jack dug it up . . . "

She tried to make eye contact with them, but only Kyra would look at her, a hard look of skepticism. Aereon smiled and shook her head. "Or you could do what Shirah wants. All three of you should be able to walk back and forth through that threshold, though I suspect only Jack can bring people back. It is not a power traditionally given Lord Marshals. Might be the real reason they are male."

"Or you could split up, leave this world to us to guard. Or to the Necromongers, as a base to restart their religion."

Somewhere in all of this, Vaako had come back. He sat down at the table, across from Jack. "It's a good world. It's a sustainable world. We could stay here."

Kyra snorted. "You really think you're part of this? That there will be _peace _between us?"

Vaako smiled, slowly. "I think that would be the best possible world. But I like fighting too."

"You think it's your call?" Riddick's voice was as gentle as it could be. "Do you want to be in charge here, Vaako?"

"You were a great warrior king, my liege." Vaako's voice was strangely sincere. "But do you want to be king of this world?"

Riddick snorted again, looked away. Aeyron broke in, quietly. "Maybe this world needs a different governmental structure. Maybe a queen." She smiled at Jack.

"Oh, fuck that." Kyra shoved back from the table. "Like she's even remotely qualified. Tomorrow, we're going through that Threshold, we're saving who ever we can save, and then we'll kick some butt. Understand me? Jack, I'll drag you through if I have to. It's the right thing to do."

"You think you're doing that?" Riddick's voice was deadly. "You think _you_ get to take her?"

Vaako stood and walked around the table, positioned himself behind Jack. She found herself turning to look at him, butterflies in her stomach. His eyes and voice full of a strange devotion. _Oh god, he's transferring from his wife to me. What do I do about this? _"My lady, if you wish to go, I will go with you. If you do not want to go, I will protect you." Vaako's pulse pistol was half drawn. She put a hand on his arm. Shook her head.

"Thank you." She took a deep breath, looked down. "But – all of you -- just – just leave me alone for a while, would you? And don't kill each other while I'm gone. I need – I need to think about all this."

She walked with as much dignity as she could muster into the forest. Then she started running.

She kept running until a tree stopped her dead in her tracks. It looked exactly like the tree Kyra had cut her down from in the Underverse, only . . . more real. Looked an awful lot like the trees in Arden. _Oh god, Arden. Has it really only been a month since I was in that tree, watching monsters move my stuff out of my dorm room?_ Obeying an uncanny urge, she started to climb. Curled up in the crook of a gigantic branch, and tried to think things through.


	24. Good Enough

Hours later, Jack wasn't back, and the shadows were lengthening. _Fuck it, _Riddick thought. Went to look for her. No idea what might be lurking in the darkness of this place.

She had made it a long way. Fortunately, she hadn't bothered to cover her trail. It ended at a tree. He hung back, searching it with his eyes, unsure of whether to scramble after her or just wait.

She spared him the quandary, called down. "I know you're there, Riddick. You can come up if you want."

He hoisted himself effortlessly into the tree, perched on a nearby branch. "You okay, kid?" He kept his voice soft, unthreatening.

"Yeah. Peachy."

"Gonna stay up here all night?"

"I like trees."

"Hm. Think that branch'll support the two of us?"

"Probably." She moved over, giving him the space closest to the trunk. He pulled himself over carefully, not entirely sure she wasn't going to bolt again.

"Thirsty?" He offered a canteen. She gave him a brief smile, took a drink.

"Thanks."

"Not a problem."

There was a long silence. Finally, he broke it. "Never figured you for the quiet type."

"I cultivated silence."

"Why? You always used to love to talk."

Her lips twitched. "Still do. I've . . . been afraid I'd say something I shouldn't."

"You care about what people think?"

"I cared about getting you caught." She hesitated. Smiled. "Asshole."

His lips twitched too, involuntarily. There was a long silence.

"I've missed that." He said abruptly.

"What? Calling you an asshole?"

"Yeah. You weren't afraid of me for so long . . . And then you were. I've hated that."

"Asshole. It's your fault. You're so fucking scary." She elbowed him, gently.

He laughed, a big, deep belly laugh. Wrapped an arm around her, feeling incredibly tender. "I'm glad you're not dead. I'll leave if you want."

"What?" She sounded, to his surprise, alarmed.

"Let you be the Lord Marshal. Or whatever. Kid, I'm a monster. I've done such things, even to you. Even to the one girl in all the world that . . ." His voice trailed off.

She sounded affronted, but kept her tone light. "You can't leave. You've got millions of former Necromongers to take care of. And someone has to keep Kyra and Vaako from killing each other."

He snorted, again. "You're not happy with me. You used to be happy with me." Silence, again. This time, she broke it.

"Happiness. Yeah. Here's the thing. I love you. But . . . I had a long time to think, after you left me on New Mecca. To think about the fact you were – you are -- a killer. I don't know how much of what they say about you to believe . . . but I saw you do it and you never flinched, never paused, never regretted. I could dress it up all romantic, since I knew everyone you killed in front of me wanted to hurt me, but I knew, deep down, that you are a killer of men . . .

"I felt so guilty for not turning you in. I knew you were a monster. But you were my monster; you saved my life again and again, and that meant something. On the other hand, I knew that was selfish of me; taking advantage of something bad because it was good for me. And if I wasn't thinking about it hard, I thought you were a hero . . .

"Then you show up out of nowhere, yank me into the darkness without so much as a "hi, remember me?" and I find out you're even worse than I thought. And I find out that almost everyone I love is dead. And you're involved in all of it.

"I've been grieving . . . Ripped up inside. But I had no choice, you know? And that's kinda freeing in its own way. I had no moral accountability. All I could do is try not to join in. Even though I was benefiting from it, eating wonderful food from exquisite plates in beautiful rooms while people died. But I was just another one of your innocent victims . . .

"And then I become worse than you. I just killed tens of millions, maybe more, people I didn't know, people I didn't hate. I did it. I made the Necropolis fall. For vengeance. Not even my vengeance. I let myself be a tool."

She stared up into the deepening shadows of the tree.

"In the last few days, I've found out I'm from a race of people who were either warriors or killers, depending on who you talk to; I fulfilled one of my childhood fantasies; I've essentially died and come back multiple times, I've resurrected the dead; I've been raped and tortured; I've killed millions; I participated in the creation of a new world, I think I made Shirah. And I just found out that just about everything in the last ten years of my life has been a trick played by the woman I thought was my sister, but isn't. And now I don't know what to do. I don't even know what I am."

She took a deep, shuddering breath. He gave into the urge and pulled her close. She relaxed into him. After a moment, she kept going. "But I know this. You're all I've got. So don't you dare fucking leave me again. Or I'll . . . I'll marry Vaako, that's what I'll do, I'll declare myself queen and name parks and children's scholarships in your honor."

He should laugh. He really should. She was trying to take the conversation back into the shallow waters. But instead, he kept his voice serious. "For what it's worth . . . everyone who survived except for maybe me and Vaako lived because you saved them."

"Yeah. And now I'm supposed to pay for that mercy."

"Come with me."

"What?"

"We'll steal a ship. Disappear."

She said nothing, but she pressed into him. _What do you mean by that, kid? _The shadows lengthened towards full darkness.

She changed the subject. "Did you put a tracking device in that necklace you gave me?"

_How did you figure that out? _"Yeah."

"Good. I gave it to Ziza."

He laughed. "Do you want to go find her? We can. We can go tonight. Or . . . your kid. We could go find her . . . "

She flushed. "I never even thought of that . . . guess I should ask Kyra." She paused.

"I . . I don't know whether I want to find them. Depends . . . depends on what we find on the other side, I guess."

Silence. Finally. "The other side?"

"Of the hole. The Threshold. I think I'm going to do it. See if there's any good I can do. I think I need to do some good. Make up for all the bad things you've done. Asshole."

He snorted.

"Like you're ever gonna to seek redemption. Maybe I can do it for you. Maybe I can bring more people back, like I did Kyra . . . maybe Abu is there. Lots of people in that place who died too early, who might want a second chance."

He snorted again, tightened his grip. Whispered into her ear, "You're right. I don't give a flying fuck about redemption. Maybe I'll just bundle you up, take you away."

She stiffened, tried to pull away. "So you were just funnin' when you said you didn't like me being afraid of you? 'cause kidnapping is scary, Riddick."

That silenced him for a long time.

"If you go through that thing, you're not going alone."

She relaxed, laughed softly. "I can live with that."

"And you're _not_ marrying Vaako."

"He'd make an honest woman of me. You won't. So it depends on how nice you are to me. Asshole."

He laughed, and nuzzled her neck. "I'll be nice. Very nice. Ready to go back? I made sure we got a good room. . ."

She melted against him, almost reluctantly. "What the hell, yes."

_Good enough_. He gathered her up in his arms, and leapt, lightly, out of the tree into the dark forest below.


End file.
